Leap of Faith

Closing the Circle

2010-08-01T23:24:00.002-04:00

It's been awhile, a long while. This evening, in an email to a friend, I mentioned homeschool and this blog. Then I came to the blog and poked around a bit. It seemed so unfinished. As if we'd all just vanished. Poof.

That's not true - we're still here, alive and kicking. And I felt I wanted a little closure and that the blog needed it. So here's the final post and a short history of our past two years. I'll try to keep it short.

The main news is that we are no longer homeschooling. We did a third year after moving to our new home and what we did that year was amazing. Trickster tales, and Jakata and Tibetan Buddhism, and multiplication and division and natural science and art. It was a grand year. We even put on a fabulous play with the homeschooling group in town and it was wonderful. But I didn't blog about any of it. I found that being in a new house, which sustained lots of damage in a flood about a month after we moved in, and chasing my EXTREMELY active 3 year-old combined with the loss of my best homeschooling blogger buddy (she moved away - sniff) and the loss of most of my part-time income that the blog fell to the wayside. But it was a glorious homeschool year. I'd like to promise to put everything up but it's a promise I know I won't keep.

At the end of that year we got word of an amazing new charter school that was planning to open. It's a school designed by the teachers and sounded a lot like homeschooling - only in a school setting (sadly, though, it's not Waldorf). Nightowl was keen to check it out so we put her name in the hat. She got in, tried it, loved it starting day one. The switch for her was pretty easy - the open class rooms, the child led learning, no grades, the focus on art - it was all very familiar. The switch was harder for me as it felt a bit like I'd been fired from my job. Sigh. But truth be told it's a wonderful school and I'm so grateful that it opened here, mere blocks from the fabulous money pit we call home.

So where are we now? Bearcub is 5-years-old and enrolled for fall and will be starting kindergarten at the aforementioned charter school. She is big and busy - quite the amazon at nearly 48 inches and 75 pounds. She's ridiculously coordinated and has a fierce right hook. She's a natural athlete and is gearing up for all the athletics that become available at age 5 - soccer, swim team, hockey. Heaven help us. Nightowl is now 10. She had no problem transitioning to school and is doing quite well - there are no grades so I can't give you a number but trust me when I say she is thriving and completing tasks far above grade level. She is still quite devoted to violin and has begun master classes and group/quartet playing. Her love of chickens prevails and this summer we finally put up a coop and ordered chicks (they are brooding in our basement right now). She is over the moon and has plans for joining 4H next year.

And me? I miss schooling. I loved teaching and love my kids. But I also love the charter school and am so grateful for what my girls are getting. True we gave up a few things but what we are getting is so much more. Of course, should we need to, I can return to homeschooling them – Nightowl has already said that she plans to homeschool for high school – we'll see. In the meantime I'm trying to work more (no easy task in this horrible economy) and working to turn my little urban lot into a smallish farm. I keep busy.

Thanks to everyone who ever read my blog - for your support and posts. I won't be removing the blog because maybe someone will find our early lessons useful. If you're considering homeschooling let me tell you this: you can do it. It's much easier than you think and much harder than you think. But you can do it. And it will be grand.

Peace ~ Aleisha

Nursery School for Bearcub

2008-09-10T21:37:00.007-04:00

"Parents would do well, during this age, to make use of preschools, childcare, and babysitting."
– from Your Three-Year-Old, Friend or Enemy

Truth, we've enrolled Bearcub in nursery school. Three mornings a week. She attends with her best friend. And? It's marvelous. She hit's the ground running in the morning eager to go. It's loving, play-based, gentle, amazing. And for us? Three days a week our muscles unclench and we focus on Nightowl and each other. No bizarre crashes, screaming fits, broken glass and other such nonsense. As a homeschooler it feels like kind of a copout, but a necessary one. We're all much, much happier.

Welcome Back 2.5

2008-09-02T21:19:00.004-04:00

Our first day went well, probably because of the plan. Even things with the Bearcub went smoothy. Honeymoon period? Maybe. Our main activities today: establishing the routine, checking out the new school supplies, making our weekly calendar, violin, and the first session of co-op. I find it is really helpful if Nightowl helps design the schedule. Then she knows what's coming!

Ummm....

2008-08-31T22:05:00.002-04:00

Well, I think I'm finally back. It's been awhile. Much happening. The run down of outside tasks taking place during our last 8 months of homeschooling is as follows:

1 - Packed
2 - Moved
3 - Unpacked
4 - Sad farewells to the Hills family
5 - Flooding
6 - Flooding
7 - Flooding
8 - Drying, construction and other fun summer activities
9 - Life, kids, planning for school etc.

So here we are. I delve into our third year of homeschooling on Tuesday. Nightowl is 8. Bearcub is 3. Things here in our new little home are fast and furious.

I've been planning, been to a conference and have some great stuff in store (fingers crossed). We're doing a sort of repeat of grade 2 topics due to Nightowl's young age. It fits. I plan to post again, regularly. And to finish my form drawing post from last year (maybe).

I'm really looking forward to our homeschooling year. The past months have been a whirlwind. Nice to get back into routine. Planning to post early - no late night computers (fingers crossed again) because sleep is good.

And we're off....

Grade Three - Books and Lesson Plans

2008-01-29T21:25:00.000-05:00

This is my list of materials that I'd like to use for Grade Three. I'm putting the list together as I find things and get new ideas. Hopefully, I won't lose this list - as I'd lose a scrap of paper.

Math
An Overview of the Elementary Math Curriculum - David Darcy

Spelling
Natural Speller - Kathryn Stout

Crafts

Quilting for the first time - Donna Kooler, Kooler Design Studio

Natural Science

Tabletop Gardens - Rosemary McCreary

Plus Gnome's Magic Box

2008-01-23T23:56:00.000-05:00

To cover the concept of place value we turned, yet again, to the gnomes. Inspired by a lesson from Eric Fairman's POD I created a little story about Plus Gnome. It went something like this:

One day King Equals asked Plus Gnome if at the end of each day he could please add up all the jewels collected by all the Gnomes. Plus Gnome was honored. However near the end of the first day he was a bit overwhelmed by the large pile that needed to be counted. As he went through the pile he kept losing his place. Finally he got the idea to put each jewel into a box as he counted it. Then he wrote the number on the ground to help him remember. This worked for a little while, however his box got so full that all of the jewels spilled onto the ground. What to do?

Using the props and characters he added a second box just to the left of the first. When ever he counted 10 jewels he would bag them up. Mark the number ten on the bag and put it into the second box. Same for when the second box got full. He'd bag up ten bags, mark the new bag 100 and then put this new bag into a third box just to the left of the second.

Before the lesson I made Plus's box from an old cardboard box. We used a slate to mark his numbers, and cut old cloth and yarn to make his bags. These lessons seemed to take a long time - what with all the bagging and cutting and tying. But it really worked for Nightowl. We reviewed this for several days and each day I'd find her tugging out the box and jewels before I was ready. She was quite eager.

All this place value led naturally to column addition when King Equals asked that Plus Gnome please keep track of all the jewels collected all week. Yikes! What's a gnome to do? Well, our gnome simply put a second box on top of the first. The second box was for jewels collected the second day. Then the columns were added together. Voila! This morphed so easily into column addition on paper. Everyday Nightowl would work with her props: sometimes her gnome would race against my gnome to see who could add the fastest. Then she would draw the lesson into her math book. During the week she would do workbooks full of problems. It always made me grin when she'd see a column addition problem and mutter to herself: "Oh, that's easy."

Math Magics

2008-01-20T18:27:00.001-05:00

After successfully revisiting the gnomes, working scads of number problems and worksheets and number facts (whew) I opted to take Nightowl in a different direction. For this I primarily used Path of Discovery, Grade 2 by Eric Fairman.

In the section on math Fairman gives a number of very detailed introductory lessons which he has dubbed Math Magics. The basics behind these lessons - equal division of shapes and symmetry. These lessons are part geometry, part times tables, part basic math concepts, part division facts and completely artistic.

We began by discussing circle. Then we worked to subdivide it into equal parts. I demonstrated this by drawing a huge chalk circle on the floor and then asking Nightowl to place markers on the edge. The markers needed to be equal distance apart. In the end we had 12 markers. Then we used yarn to connect the markers to create triangles within the circle. Every day we created a different number of triangles working to make the triangles the same. Each day we drew the large circle, did the division and then copied the image into her math book. Each day we ha a different star design made of triangles. This was very challenging for Nightowl. She was often frustrated trying again and again to create the star pattern within the circle.

Then we moved to squares within squares with the resulting subdivision of triangles. Again we started with a large shape on the floor, subdivided by yarn. I told a short story from Fairman's work to describe the subdivisions. Then we moved to the slate and then the main lesson book. This optical illusion was very intriguing. Nightowl spent an entire lesson putting together the very detailed picture on the left.

Finally, to better grasp how many squares and triangles were actually in the picture we recreated the squares within squares exercise in felt.

How many triangles to you see? How many squares?

Mathcat

2008-01-12T18:43:00.000-05:00

I like homeschool because I get to do math with my cat.
– Nightowl, age 7, 2nd Grade

Math - Number families and gnomes

2008-01-12T18:06:00.000-05:00

When I mentioned Math to Nightowl her first response was the joyful yelp of: "Gnomes!" Ah, yes we love the gnomes here. It is abundantly clear to me that the Gnomes will be an integral part of our math for some time.

So we began with a short review of the processes. For this we used our new little felted Gnomes. If you don't have actual Gnomes to work with I highly recommend them. My girl really loved the little guys and they made math very, very fun.

After our review we began the serious work of number families - using David Darcy and Dorthy Harrer's books as inspiration. For example the number family for 3 is 0,1,2,3 as these numbers make up the variety of addition and subtraction sentences for 3 (1+2=3, 3-2=1, 0+3=3 and etc.). Nightowl really grooved into this concept. We spent lots of time challenging each other to list the family for various numbers.

Harrer's second grade lesson on the "Richest Number" was surprising to me. It seemed so esoteric that I wasn't sure Nightowl would get it. But I plowed through watching to see what would happen. She loved the story and had no problem dividing the numbers into their respective parts. If you haven't seen or used this resource check it out, it's great.

All of this flowed pretty naturally into beginning the times tables. Again we used the Gnomes. I created little stories and we wrote problems out forwards and backwards (3 x 2 = 6, 6/2=3 etc.). All of our clapping out rhythms and counting by 2s, 3s, etc. really paid off here. I plan to go back to the times tables later in the year.

One other note on the Gnomes. Using story to relate these important concepts really made me a better teacher. I haven't considered the quality of these concepts in ages. They are so integral to how I think and get through the day that they seem almost ridiculously easy and basic. If I'd had to approach these concepts just as number facts I would have become completely impatient when Nightowl struggled to understand. In short I'd have been limited by my own experience. Using the stories and the manipulatives forced my thinking into the magical and the wonderous. I know I was more patient and this made all the difference. Nightowl hardly even knew she was learning - it was a natural extension of the play/work we were doing. Very cool.

After each lesson she put a drawing/representation of what she'd learned into her main lesson book - which fulfilled her almost constant need to draw. Finally, to help solidify these concepts I gave her daily assignments in a variety of math work books that I picked up at Barnes and Nobel. She did these after we'd moved onto Geometery and it was really good daily practice.

Math Time

2008-01-12T17:53:00.000-05:00

November/December 2007 was our first month of second grade math. From my viewpoint in mid-January I have to say that it really was an incredible month. Except for a short review the concepts we covered were all new and difficult.

I noticed a huge change in Nightowl during this block. Language arts lessons had a very dreamy quality. They were relaxed in that kick back on the couch with a cup of hot tea kind of way. Even the small bit of grammar we covered was very mellow. But math - it was almost frenetic. Whenever we embarked on a main lesson Nightowl became wired. It was impossible for her to sit still. She flipped and flopped and bounced all over the place. We got through the lessons but they were so active. I could almost hear the cogs in her mind turning. We ended every lesson with some big energy release - like dance party or running outside. It was amazing to watch her process. I was constantly glad and relieved that she was not trapped in a school classroom for this work. I'm quite sure she would have been in trouble for not sitting still or labeled ADHD or something of the sort. But at home it was not a big deal. Bouncing along she retained nearly everything, made some amazing leaps, learned tons and frequently made me laugh. If any of you have experienced a similar response from your kids please let me know. Wow! For the next few posts onto the actual math!

Two-and-a-half

2007-12-20T01:04:00.000-05:00

I've just come back to the blog world. Back to reading others and thinking about my own. Oh, I've never forgotten this blog, ideas have been simmering, I just couldn't get here.

Bearcub is now at the half way point between two and three. I know many, many homeschooling moms with children this age and older. How do they do it? I am perpetually exhausted. It's been five years since I coexisted with a two-and-a-half old child; I'd forgotten. That and the fact that Bearcub's young life story is so different from what we experienced with Nightowl - think zestful exuberance rather than internal wanderings. With Bearcub it's so much....well, so much more. The highs are very high and lows oh so low. Last week, in the midst of some power struggle I actually stepped outside of myself and thought - "Now really, you are arguing with a two-year-old about a sippy cup!" Such am I reduced to. But I am hoping to regain a sense of calm and centeredness. Is this possible? I'm not sure. All I know is that this past month I have been tired. To all of you with multiple homeschooled children, with more chaotic lives and more balls in the air - I salute you.

I have many, many things to report. Tomorrow is our last day of school before winter break. I plan to post our lessons and adventures during this down time. But first I must to bed. In a houseful of night rhythm folks Bearcub is a morning angel. She bursts from the bed with a shout and lands on the floor at a run at 7 a.m. and the day careens forth from there. I'm finding that sleep for myself is the single most important ingredient for an easier, calmer day. I'm up too late already, and really I have nothing profound to say. Just wanted to check-in and say hello.

Spelling and Writing and Grammar - Oh my!

2007-11-11T19:46:00.000-05:00

With all the reading and writing going on here it became very evident that Nightowl was having some trouble. Now part of this has to do with her personality - she simply loathes getting things wrong. Incorrectly spelling words, sounding them out when she reads aloud - this was causing loads of stress.

What to do?

I thought for a while and then searched my Waldorf inspired lists and my unschooling lists
and finally decided that simple is best. We don't have many more hours in the day and I want to capitalize on what we are already doing. So, I turned to McGuffy.

Nightowl loves these old-timey readers. She finished the Primer early during our first month of Grade Two. I handed her the First Reader and she brought it back two days later - finished. Wow. She's now working through the Second Reader. But in the meantime.....I have started giving her assignments. We started with recitation. Each week she picks a lesson and then reads it aloud on Fridays. I also started creating spelling packets made up of words from lessons in the First Reader. It's a simple list of 20 words with directions to write the words and use them in sentences. On Fridays we have a low stress quiz on the words. Any she can't remember are transfered to the next week's list.

For writing she has been doing weekly practice on capital and lowercase letters. She works on these projects as I'm putting the Bearcub down for a nap and when she has free time.

So far so good. Nightowl is learning to budget her time and to prepare an assignment. She likes it ok, although she needs lots of encouragement. My plan is to continue this activity at a lower intensity during our math block.

Finally, with all of the spelling and handwriting, I decided to try a little grammar. Using the first lesson from Dorothy Harrer's book: An English Manual I told Nightowl the story of the four types of words. She was completely engaged by this fairy story and copied it into her main lesson book. I feel that it laid a good foundation for further grammar work later in the year.

Whew, the end of our first language arts block. On to math!

Finished!

2007-11-11T19:44:00.000-05:00

Here they are, all ready for our first math block.
Left to right: King Equals, Plus, Times, Divide, and Minus

Money Math

2007-10-30T13:27:00.001-04:00

Nightowl made this little clutch purse on her weaving loom. She uses it to store her money. She now earns a weekly allowance and is saving her money to purchase a flock of chicks and chicken supplies. Occasionally, her riches seem tempting so she'll bring her purse along when we do errands. She might purchase a book, stickers, etc.

With this saving and spending has come concern about how money works. Previously, she has had little interest. Watching her it became very apparent that she had no knowledge of coins, dollars or their value. So, in true homeschooling fashion we put Nightowl in charge of her money. She must keep it, count it, and consider the value. She's working on recognizing the coins, writing amounts and making change. To this end I made up a little game. I'll pull out my pocket change, hand it to her and say: "If you can tell me how much this is worth and the names of the coins you can keep it."

We've been playing for a day or so and this morning is the first day I lost. I'm out $0.36 which Nightowl has tucked away in her Chicken Fund. Bummer for me. Guess I'll need to make the game harder!

Aesop's Fables

2007-10-30T12:27:00.001-04:00

Our first language arts block focused on Aesop's Fables. What we did with this was really pretty basic: I told Nightowl a fable from memory (they are short) and drew a picture to illustrate. She discussed the fable, came up with a descriptive sentence about said fable and then drew the picture into her Grade 2 Language arts book. At the end of the week we'd recap sometimes acting out a favorite for the Bearcub. On Wednesdays, our water color painting day, we skipped the picture drawing and tried to come up with fable paintings - this was interesting. All in all it's been pretty mellow and has a very tidy feel - which works for us.

I was eager to see Nightowl's response to the fables and I was not let down. My second-grader is sooooo moralistic about everything. These tales really appealed to her sense of right and wrong. It was even more interesting when a fable spoke directly to one of her personal issues - such as the Fox and the Grapes. My little perfectionist has a real tendency to proclaim sour grapes if she cannot complete a task. Her sentence for that particular fable was: The fox was not successful. A true statement and interesting considering the source. We're still discussing this story and the saying.

At the end of last week I gave her the copy of Aesop's to read on her own. She was delighted - for some reason this surprised me. She really does enjoy these literature lessons and seems to get a lot out of them.

Regarding the language arts watercolors: I find we are more apt to include subjects if I can make them work within the block - they just seem to fit better. Thus the watercolor fables. Our routine has been to do two paintings per week. The first deals with something from the block. The second comes from David Darcy's watercolor painting curriculum from Inspiring Your Child's Education - which is great! I highly recommend this resource for Waldorf homeschooling.

Images: #1 - The Cock and The Pearl, #2 - The Fox and the Grapes, #3 - The Dog and the Bone, #4- Belling the Cat

2nd Grade Form Drawing - Part 1

2007-10-28T16:50:00.000-04:00

We're doing forms a little differently this year. Rather than doing a long form drawing block we do forms once a week, on Monday mornings. Our other difference is that I'm using an actual story (that I did not make up) to present the forms.

Truth: I borrowed with idea from Sara, yet again. Last year she did form drawing using the Clown of God, retold and illustrated by Tomie de Paola. I like this story very much, it has a nice spiritual feel and works really well with the focus of second grade. The Clown of God is the story of Giovanni, a beggar child who can juggle.

My my plan is to use this story through Christmas - as it is a Christmas story that ends on Christmas Day. Our final form will show the final scene of the story. I have a hardcover copy of the book that I plan to present to her on that day. As this story ends we will begin our second, main lesson, language arts, block focusing on stories of the Saints. I just love it when things tie in nicely.

So far it's going well. Nightowl is having no trouble with the forms, so I might adjust my plans to include more difficult forms. Until then, here's what we've done so far:

#1 - Giovanni, #2 - Juggling,

#3 - the crowd, young and old, #4 - the traveling players

#5 - Giovanni joins the traveling players, #6 - Giovanni's clown suit

I find that I'm liking this weekly version of form drawing better because it spreads out this extremely intense activity, allows us to explore more forms, and keeps Nightowl involved in the serial of the story. Its good recall for her to re-tell the story each week. Plus, she is not getting overwhelmed by the activity - which was one of our problems last year. Finally, with this schedule we have the feeling of doing many different subjects as opposed to just a single block; it keeps things interesting. I'm already considering what we'll do for the January - June forms. I'm not sure yet, but there are a number of interesting possibilities.

Give me that Old Time Schoolin'

2007-10-20T16:14:00.000-04:00

On the Monday of my return home we had a field trip scheduled, thank heavens. Our community school corp maintains an 1800s school house out in the woods, just north of our little town. Every year there are a number of field trips and camps. This year our homeschool co-op got in on the fun and got to attend a day of old-time school.

That day Nightowl put on a calico dress, apron and sunbonnet. She carried her bread and butter lunch in a tin pale, her McGuffy First reader, and slate. I dropped her off at the school, crossed my fingers and returned home.

That sounds more dramatic than it was. I knew she'd be fine. We've been reading the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Nightowl is quite caught up in the story. We also use a set of McGuffy Readers from the 1800s as a way to practice reading. Quite recently I began asking Nightowl to recite from the readers. She was well prepared. Plus, she got to share a seat with her best pal Sunburst and saw a number of other homeschool friends from the co-op.

When I picked her up at the end of the day she was ready to go. There was no air-conditioning in the school and she was hot. She hadn't had enough water; she's an all-day sipper and modern water bottles were not allowed. But she did enjoy herself - especially the dressing up part. She let me know that while she liked the trip she did not want to attend a week-long old-time school summer camp.

What made me giggle was the fact that a bunch of homeschoolers were sending their kids to an old-time school so that they could experience the difference from modern schooling. Ha! ((Oh, I know there was more to it than that - but it made me giggle all the same.))

Photos: #1 - Inside the school. #2 - The school marm takes attendance.

Re-entry

2007-10-16T15:23:00.001-04:00

I shared my flight home from Canada with The Four Bettys, the 2007 International Queens of Harmony. They were crowned on Friday after the contest and, yes, they wore their crowns on the plane. The trip was also shared by members from at least four other choruses and a renowned director. There was singing on board and even a rousing round of applause.

It was that way all week. From my flight out last Monday (I met 12 members of my chorus in the airport) to the taxi to the hotel (cued up with chorus members from New Zealand), to every restaurant we sampled (Anyone have a pitch pipe? Let's sing while we're waiting for our meal), to our day off hiking in the Canadian Rockies (Yes, we ran into Sweet Adelines in the mountains) - it was complete submersion.

We rehearsed daily, shared rooms, hotels, transport. We talked barbershop, costumes, scoring and stats. We discussed coaching and held hands. We sweated through rehearsals. My chorus ate meals together in mass and in small groups. After the contest we hung out in the bar, listened to quartets strolling by and processed our performance.

It was grand, exhilarating, distressing, stressful, joyous, rejuvenating and exhausting. In one week my phsyical and emotional state hit the following hightlights:

exhaustion from travel preparations
sick with a horrible head cold
teary at the spontaneous marriage of a chorus member and her partner (cause they can do that it Canada)
healed from the aforementioned head cold
well rested, ready to perform
excited, exhilerated, and blissful in anticipation
disappointed about our performance
bitter about our performance
sad about our performance
awed by the natural beauty of the Canadian Rockies
dizzy with discussion of our performance, our chorus and the state of Sweet Adelines
breathless at the sight of Lake Louise
exhausted from travels
peaceful from the mountains
resigned to our performance and the results
positive about our performance and the results
happy with the trip
ready to move foward.

All of this in seven days. Whew. True we were not happy with our performance, we knew we could have done better. However, we did place 12th and that's a great thing. We did get to sing, gloriously, in the Calgary Saddledome to an audience of thousands. We did get a standing ovation. Nothing to sneeze at.

I had my last dose of convention during the ride home from the airport. Our driver had recorded our performance and three of us huddled around a latop computer, watching, as we wound our way home in the dark, early morning hours. What did I notice? Simply that this hobby is quite wonderful.

I woke on Monday to a school field trip and children whiney from too much time away from Mom. It was wonderful to see them and hand out my presents. Nightowl asked me quite seriously: "Why didn't you win Mommy?" (She had watched the webcast here at home.)

After I explained that we hadn't done our best on stage she asked again - "Why not?" Nerves? Lack of focus? Insecurity? We talked about all of it. Her next question took me by surprise: "Will you give up?"

My answer was, of course not - because while it is easy to get wrapped up in the contest, the real joy is the singing. That's what it's all about - the singing. Then she made a lovely mental leap and brought up her violin playing and how the songs are getting harder, but more beautiful. There are days that she wants to give up, but she doesn't. Together we plow through with our individual struggles to learn notes and create music. It is not easy, but it is worth it.

Her last question: What did you bring me? I brought out the maple candy and quartet CDs I'd brought home. Then I showed her the picture of the mountains and Lake Louise and described my day hiking in the icy cold air near the glacier. Her last gift: a glacial rock for her nature collection. She seemed quite satisfied.

Me? I'm getting re-grounded. Re-entry is always a bit awkward. I exclaimed joyfully when a chorus member called yesterday evening - it had been a whole day since I'd seen her. And I've got the barbershop music playing constantly. And I'm still processing all of it. And I'm getting ready for our next concert and checking out our newest piece of music, the oh-so-challenging "Good-bye, World." And my job is calling. And my kids are calling. And I'm glad it is all still here. And I'm waiting for the DVD of our Calgary performance and our next rehearsal. Back to life. Back to reality. Happy sigh.

Photos: #1 - CCC Singing the Ballad in Calgary, #2 - CCC Singing the Up-tune in Calgary (check me out!) #3- Lake Louise and Victoria Glacier, Alberta Canada, Canadian Rockies, #4 - Chataeu Fairmont, Lake Louise

Gone

2007-10-08T14:19:00.000-04:00

Tonight I am leaving.

I've packed my bags and shown Chillymama the homeschool schedule. I've got my passport and my in-flight knitting project. Friends I am leaving. For seven (S-E-V-E-N) whole, glorious days I'll be gone.

Why?

Because I belong to this cult. A large group of barbershop singing and performing women. And this week is our annual international contest. Ok, it's not really a cult but it's kinda cult-like considering the amount of personal devotion I have to this decidedly splinter group hobby.

I was thinking about it this week, as I was packing and itemizing my lists and keeping my voice warm. My chorus is my first, and longest commitment. I auditioned and joined this group in 1993. I was a mere 23-years-old, a pup! For almost 15 years rehearsals have taken place weekly, on the same night at various locations. The membership of the group has waxed and waned but the core stays steady. We sing and work and rehearse on weekends devoting money and travel time and sleep. Cult? Maybe. Chillymama sometimes calls herself a barbershop widow. She's not completely wrong.

And here's the kicker: I've been involved for 15 years minus some downtime to get kinda married and birth and nurse babies. This is longer than I've known my partner or children or cats - and I'm not considered along time member. Heavens no. That honor goes to the 50 year members. At 15, I'm just a babe in the woods with grand aspirations toward the 50 year mark. Although this goal could prove tricky as Chillymama's schedule is going to change to evenings and I'm not sure about rehearsals and childcare with my commute. Ah, yes I'm so wacky devoted that I commute for this hobby (just like about half of the other members - think: cult). But I can't think about this scheduling dilemma right now - I've got to concentrate on the upcoming singing.

Truthfully, it's all about the singing. There is nothing, nothing, like singing in harmony with 100 other women. The music gets into your body and raises the gooseflesh and just erupts from within. It is the best kind of therapy ever. It is like seeing the face of God smiling. It makes me calm, revives my soul and renews my spirit. Sure it's competitive singing but it's not really about the winning - it's about perfecting the art. Singing really well means you make it to the international level. Singing really, really well means you make it from the International Semi-Finals to the Finals. And friends, my chorus sings really, really, really well. So well, in fact that we're competing this year. It's glorious. The music, the women, the make-up, the sequins, the jazz hands - all of it.

So I'm going. Off for a week with my cult, er...chorus. And I don't regret a minute of my leaving or my preparations to leave.

If you're interested in the show you can watch the contest live, via the free webcast. Here's the direct link: http://www.sweetadelineintl.org/webcast.cfm.

My chorus is contestant #20 in the Semi-Finals, performing at 3:44 Mountain Time. Check it out and see if you can find me. I'll be the fabulous redhead in the front row.

For now, I'm leaving - no email, no cell-phone, no day to day general stuff. Just one big musical party. I'm going.
Going.
Gone!

These Days

2007-10-08T14:16:00.001-04:00

Looking for Nightowl? Most days this is where you'll find her, with her nose buried in a book.

Watching and Doing

2007-10-07T14:26:00.000-04:00

We've been doing a lot of natural, Natural Science. That's really the only way I can explain it. For most of this month's block we've spent time outside observing nature. We're watching. Talking about what we see. Watching some more. We've taken field trips to two orchards and a local farm to watch some sheep sheering. As a bonus, on the sheering trip, the kids discovered a great big spider and watched as it caught, trapped and wrapped a cricket. Then they all looked on as the spider moved in to taste its meal. It was pretty amazing.

In the Hand book of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock, 1911 she writes:

Nature-study cultivates the child's imagination , since there are so many wonderful and true stories that he may read with his own eyes, which affect his imagination as much as does fairy lore....bringing to him a love of the beautiful; it brings to him early a perception of color, form, and music.

This book has become my new favorite for homeschooling. Ms. Comstock was an early elementary teacher and staunch advocate for moving the classroom outside as much as possible. In this amazing tome she entreats all teachers to let their students observe freely, learn to question and revel in the joys of discovery.

Plus, this "handbook" (900 pages!) lists, by subject information on virtually everything in the observable natural world. Ok, this is probably an exaggeration, but hey it seems like a lot. If there is something we want to observe I just check the book on where to find it. The book also gives a short lesson for each subject. These are basically, open ended questions about the bug, flower, tree or mammal that you might be watching - ways to get the discussion going.

Thus far we have not created a good book for natural science. We've done no fact searching or elaborate drawing - I'm sure this might emerge, Nightowl loves to draw, but it's not part of the lesson. For now we are watching. This is a challenge for me, too, as I'm a library junkie and most inclined to use the library info center or look up a topic on Google. Following my nose is not my first inclination. Got a question? Look it up in a book. Well for now, we're trying not too.

In regard to doing - we're cooking. The kitchen has become our lab. We are working together to create meals and process food for the winter. We've been experimenting with natural fermentation (via Nourishing Traditions). We've made fermented ginger-carrot relish, yogurt, and fermented grains for breakfast and baked goods. We've learned to can, and to be careful when handling knives. We've harvested and dried our herbs.

Nightowl is itching to try natural dyeing, make our own cheese, and harvest yeast spores from the air (sourdough). And while working in our lab we discuss what we eat, what our food eats, and where food comes from.

My views on food and food production changed recently when I read Michael Pollen's: The Omnivore's Dilemma and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This amazing book has influenced our homeschooling. As a family we are trying to lower our food mileage - better for the planet and better for us. We want our food as natural as it can be - grass fed meats, local produce. We talk about how we eat what our food eats - and what do we really want to eat? Interestingly we all like our food better when we view it this way. Nightowl is taking a class on permaculture and it is influencing her choices regarding water, planting, cooking, using the car, and nature.

I have also noticed that the way she interacts with nature is quieter, more reflective and more purposeful. Recently, she mentioned that she wanted to learn more about bats. "How shall we do that?" I asked her. "I guess we'd better go out and find some." she replied. I think Ms. Comstock would be proud.

Gnoming Along

2007-10-01T21:38:00.001-04:00

Ok, so now we're really Waldofers - we're making gnomes. This just cracks me up. For our first second grade craft we started needle felting. Nightowl really enjoys it. I'm in the process of creating the four math gnomes to use with our November math block. Nightowl, is making a large, harvesty gnome. More images of the completed project once we've finished and I have a working camera again.

Applesauce and Bandages

2007-09-29T00:20:00.000-04:00

For second grade I've divided our year into month long blocks. We focus on a primary subject each month, plus do festivals/holidays, music, form drawing, clay work, painting, cooking and etc. Of course all the subjects seem to get covered - which is a good thing.

For the month of September we're focusing on natural science, specifically the topic of harvest. We've been reading books on harvesting and storing food, Nightowl is attending a class on Permaculture, and we're doing a bit of our own harvesting.

We started with apples. During our first visit to the orchard we got the fever and came home with a bushel of apples. Really, it didn't look like that many apples when we were in the orchard, so we also brought home peaches, plums, cider and squash. Whew. Once at home Nightowl said" "Mommy, this is a lot of apples." And how. So, we decided to learn how to can applesauce. A perfect harvest lesson. We went to our local hardware store and stocked up. Cans - check. Peeler- check. Water bath canner - check. Let's go.

At first it all went well and was very serene. Nightowl liked working the peeler. Bearcub was munching on spiral cut apples, the sauce was bubbling. Then, blam, everything changed. You know how it is with little ones, something just snaps. Suddenly Bearcub was screaming and hitting her sister, Nightowl was demanding justice, I glanced at the clock: "11:30 already! It can't be, it's time for lunch." I shooed them out of the way and tried to quickly finish paring a last batch of fruit, when it happened. My knife slipped and I cut, quite deeply into the fleshy part of my thumb.

Now either I came very close to a nerve or I'm just a big weenie cause I hollered. Blood was flowing down my arm and onto the floor. I grabbed a towel and rushed upstairs. My first thought was to clean the wound. When I did this my head started to spin and my vision began to darken. Not good. I put pressure on my thumb and put my head between my knees.

As my head cleared I could hear Nightowl crying: "Mommy what's wrong? There's blood on the floor."

I went back down to the children and was trying to keep pressure on my thumb when, again, I felt my head spin and my vision started to darken. Not good. I lay down on the floor and put my hand up all the while murmuring reassurances to the girls. I asked Nightowl to bring me the phone (which she did) but I couldn't remember a single number. I broke out in a sweat and everything was tilting; I needed help.

Calmly and firmly I asked Nightowl to please run across the street to our neighbor and tell her that I'd cut my finger and needed some help. Quickly now, Mommy's about to pass out.

She tried. She opened the door. She even went outside. But she couldn't do it. Nightowl has a big personality and lots of confidence - unless she is asked to interact with semi-strangers (for example our neighbors with whom we speak daily and attend the same church- I don't really get this) or do something that puts her in the spotlight (such as knocking on a door). She doesn't even like to knock on the doors of folks we know.

As I lay there with blood oozing out of the cloth, drenched in cold sweat Nightowl came back in, crying. "I can't Mommy. I can't do it." I think I might have asked her again - I don't really remember - but in the end I simply said: "It's ok, honey. Mommy will be alright." What else could I say? And then the adrenaline kicked in, my heart slowed down, my vision cleared and I stopped shivering. Eventually I could sit up. I bandaged my finger. I took several deep breaths. I calmed my kids. I made lunch. I finished the sauce.

Everything turned out ok. My thumb has pretty much healed (I didn't even need stitches, guess I am a weenie). The applesauce and plumb butter are quite tastey. And Nightowl and I learned that emergency plans are necessary. We now have a list of names and numbers near the phone, that she can read and is comfortable dialing. We've spoken with our neighbors and she's practicing asking for help. Eventually we'll practice ringing doorbells. All in all, we learned way more than I ever imagined.

Second Grade Begins

2007-09-28T23:08:00.000-04:00

It's hard to believe that it's nearly October! We started our school year on September 1 and the month has just flown by. So far, the best part for me has been my lack of anxiety - I feel kinda seasoned and really happy to be back at it. Our new schedule is working great so far - we've been using it since mid-August and refining as we go. It's going to change on us as Chillymama will soon be working evenings. But hey, we're flexible - at least in theory.

For our first week we did some simple back to school activities to ease our transition. We started by reviewing Nightowl's work from Grade One. For some reason I was surprised by how much joy she took from this activity. She read her books with rapt interest, reciting details from science, reading and math. All of the things we did really made an impression and, of course, that makes me feel wonderful. It's working! Hooray!

After reviewing everything I gave Nightowl a white cardboard portfolio and explained that this is how we would store her Grade One work. I then offered her our beeswax crayons; she could decorate the portfolio if she wished.

She took this task very seriously and spent two entire main lessons working. My only instruction was that she draw in the way we had practiced last year - without outlines. The rest was up to her. To my delight she decorated the portfolio with images from all her Grade One Lessons.

You can see the Lovely Lady, Divide the Math Gnome, the sister from the Six Swans, and an illustration of the Golden Goose. She's really quite proud of this work.

We finished our Back to School week by creating a September Calendar (pictured above - I plan to repeat this exercise each month), drawing up our weekly schedule and by attending our first Coop Class - which was pretty fun. All in all a good start to a new year.

Keeping House

2007-09-28T14:11:00.000-04:00

In early August I attended a two-day conference with Barbara Dewey. One of the things I took away from this event was the charge to put one's house in order before planning the school year. I had taken a small stab at scheduling near the end of summer and it had glorious results so I was game. I did some serious thinking about what needs to happen in our lives before schooling. The short list I came up with:

Bearcub's nap,
cleaning the house,
one day to do my paid work (yes, I have an outside job!),
family time,
church,
care for the pets,
home cooked meals, and
a general sense of calm.

Sounds good. Then I looked at our outside activities - for all family members. They are:

Nightowl's Violin lessons - twice a week,
Horse back riding - Nightowl - one a week,
Homeschool park day,
playgroup,
Rehearsal night - me (I sing in a group),
Bookclub - me,
Bookclub - Chillymama,
church committees, and
Spanish class - Chillymama

Ok, things are getting full. Next I looked at our weekly homeschooling activities:

Main lesson,
form drawing,
painting,
clay work,
music practice,
Coop class,
permaculture class,
handwork/crafts, and
circle time.

Alrighty, there's a lot on this list. But I took small step, started with the first list, and reflected on Nightowl's rhythm, when Bearcub naps and other items that are inflexible (lessons, rehearsals etc.). Then we plugged them into a grid and - wow - we've got time for everything.
I drew up a grid and as one of our starting second grade lesons Nightowl and I filled it in with illustrations. It now resides proudly on our fridge. We look at it every day.

As long as I don't get over zealous we can make it work. Priorities are different for me this year. For example, I don't feel that every homeschool activity needs a product for the main lesson book (more on this in future posts). I'm also coming to terms with cleaning house in bits and pieces. Plus, I now realize that activities don't need to be hours long - some just take a few minutes. And most important: as much as possible I let go of the clock. There are no times on our schedule. I can remember when the inflexible things happen but as for the rest - it fits in as it can. And you know, it's working. I'm more relaxed because there is time, planned time, for everything. That nagging worry of when it will get done is gone. What a relief.

Grade Two Books, Resources, and Lessons

2007-09-15T00:17:00.000-04:00

This page is a record of my materials and sources used for Grade 2. I plan to keep it updated.

General Grade 2 Curriculum
Path of Discovery Grade 2 - Eric Fairman
Inspiring Your Child’s Education - David Darcy
Materials from Marsha Johnson - waldorfhomeeducators.com

Math
Waldorf Math Grades 1-3 - Barbara Dewey
Math Lessons for Elementary Grades - Dorothy Harrer
An Overview of the Elementary Math Curriculum - David Darcy

Form Drawing
Form Drawing for the Homeschooling Parent - Barbara Dewey
The Clown of God - Tomi de Paola

Science
Science as Phenomena for Homeschoolers K-8 - Barbara Dewey
The Handbook of Nature Study - Anna Botsford Comstock
Exploring the Forest with Grandforest Tree

Music
Suzuki Violin Method Bks 2 and 3
Wolfhart Etudes for Violin, Bk 1
Rise Up Singing

Crafts
Handwork for Homeschoolers - Barbara Dewey
The Knitted Farmyard - Hannelore Wernhard
Knitted Animals - Anne Dorthe Grigaff

Language Arts
An English Handbook - Dorothy Harrer
Stories of the Saints - Siegwart Knijpenga
The Fables of Aesop - Edited by Joseph Jacobs
Indian Why Stories - Frank B Linderman
The King of Ireland's Son - Padraic Column
McGuffy Readers 2 and 3

Movement
Fly Like a Butterfly: Yoga for Children - Shakta Kaur Khalsa
Come Unto These Yellow Sands - Molly von Heider
The Dance Steps of Hairspray - Hairspray DVD

Books We've Read Together
Little House Series
Martha Years Series
Biography of Martin Luther King
The Incredible Invention of Hugo Cabret
The Wind Boy (2nd Read)
Peter Pan (15th Read)
The Adventures of King Arther and the Round Table

Books Nightowl is Reading
Magic Treehouse - series
The Lighthouse - series
Marvin Redpost - series
The A-Z Mysteries - series
All books by Dick King-Smith (Babe, Sophie's Snail etc.)
The Wizard of Oz
Rainbow Fairies - series
Pixie Hollow - series
Dinotopia - series
Peter Pan
Misty of Chincoteague
Stormy - Misty's Foal
Black Beauty

Summer's End

2007-09-03T23:10:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy summer. Nightowl asked that I post a few things as reminders of her fun and learning during these past three months. Bearcub was always along for the ride and had a good time too!

#1 - Chris comes to visit! Wackiness ensues!

#2 - Trapeez camp - Mommy did this too although, fortunately, there is no video record of my performance. This little movie of Nightowl shows her form on the knee hang and the wonderful safety lines that help while she attempts the back-flip dismount - yikes!

#3 - Musical theater summer camp with her good buddy Sunburst. It was their first production. So great!

#4 - Chickens. That single word sums up most of Nightowl's focus this summer. Oh sure we did swimming (very fun), tried gymnastics (a disaster), hung with friends (good times) and a variety of other things. But the best was the chickens. It is due to chickens that Nightowl is learning about caring for the living creatures in her world, learning to read, and attaining a new level of self confidence. Here are a few of pix that she took of foul at the fair.

Pictured: Polish, Buff Orpington, No-Idea

Pictures: Golden Lace Polish, Bearcub preferred the goats

#5 - Pastured Dairy Farm Trip. Very fun. Note that her main interest is not cows.

#6 - Watching the garden grow? It did grow - but not well. We learned that gardens need lots of sun (we only got about 2 hours a day) and lots of water (there's a drought here) and that bunnies will eat just about everything.

#7 - The Michigan Women's Festival. No photos from this but it was incredible - check out their site!

#8 - Bearcub discovered the joys of paint - what an artist!

Spring Wrap-Up

2007-07-25T13:46:00.000-04:00

I've come to realize that I will not be posting a number of long posts about the end of our year and spring activities. So here are a few photos and little wrap-up:

We built a bat house and did a fun little unit on bats.

We did more gardening, worm study and created a garden map:

Did a little number line/math stuff - which did not work very well for us. We'll have to try this activity again:

And took a great trip to see the wild butterfly exhibit and gardens:

Busy, busy, busy end of the year.

Grade One - Books and Lessons

2007-07-04T21:16:00.000-04:00

This page contains a list of our Grade One books and lessons. Follow the links for more details.

Language Arts
Miss Hickory
Grade One Book List
Reading, Reading, Reading
A Prince of a Tale....And Then Some
Word-Family Town
Learning to Read

Math
Back to School
Math, Baby!
Logic
Math in May

Natural Science
Science (and other subjects)
What I Like About Homeschool
The Drawing Emerges
Making Lasagna
LA Story #2: Flowers, Flowers, Flowers
LA Story #3: The Huntington Botanical Gardens
LA Story #5: The Best Time Ever
All's Fair
Back to Nature
Book Learning
Lasagna Again
Nightowl in Love

Geography/Social Studies
LA Story #4: The Seaside
Flat Nightowl Returns

Wet-on-Wet Painting
Wednesday Watercolors
Family Arts Weekend

Drama/Art
What I Know Now
The Alien Under the Bed
Family Arts Weekend

Form Drawing
Buckeyes
Form Drawing Block 1

Handwork
Craft Log #2
Back to School
Craft Log #2
The New Craft

Music
Two Violins
The Only Subject

Cooking
Making Granola
At the End of the Day

Festivals/Holidays
Autumnal Equinox
Spirits and Lights
Solstice

Daily Rhythm/Schedules
Day One
What We're Studying This Year
What Type of Homeschooling Do You Practice?
Rage
Rhythm
The Most Important Things

Waldorf Books and Materials
Books by Barbara Dewey/Waldorf Without Walls
Waldorf Reading for Homeschoolers
Waldorf Math Grades 1-3
Form Drawing for the Homeschooling Parent
Science as Phenomena for Homeschoolers K-8
Handwork for Homeschoolers
Waldorf Inspired Watercolor Painting with Children

Form Drawing Grades One Through Four
Exploring the Forest with Grandforest Tree
The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Pantheon Edition
Cristopherus First Grade Syllabus
Oak Meadow First Grade Syllabus

Seasonal Festivals/Sprituality Books
Circle Round

Foreign Language Books and Resources
Rosetta Stone
Sing and Learn
Teach Me More

Learning to Read

2007-07-01T11:31:00.000-04:00

During our final days of first grade we continued our language arts in two ways. The first was a return to the Grimm's Fairy Tales; we read a new tale everyday. The second was to continue our adventures in the Word Family Town.

Nightowl adored the Word-Family Town. She requested it every day during main lesson time. I found this challenging because in my mind we were done with the project and it was time to pack it up neatly in the Grade One portfolio. I'd forgotten many of my original ideas to continue the project. It was time for something new. How wrong I was.

Our revisit to the WFT began with my realization that Nightowl was having difficulty deciphering the consonant blends - th, sh, and ch. As part of our daily reading we had been working our way through McGuffy's Primer. These blends were presented but she just couldn't keep them straight. She needed something else but my very tired brain just couldn't think of something new. So one afternoon I pulled out our town and arranged it on the floor. I told myself that it wouldn't hurt to revisit this project - after all she did keep asking. Maybe Nightowl could find something new. So I stepped aside and let the unschooling take over.

The first thing I noticed is that Nightowl got really into the WFT - literally. She put herself into the town and began playing and interacting with it just like she would her dolls and fairy houses. Only this time her muttered narrative was peppered with spelling out words as the little letter people went through their daily chores of living.

She quietly continued this activity for several days during main lesson time. I held myself back and watched. Then, one evening, we were reading before bed. Nightowl, who likes to watch the pages as I read aloud, said suddenly - ch does not live in the Word Family Town. She seemed a bit sad about this. And then it hit me - really it was so obvious, what had I been thinking?

The next afternoon before getting out the town I sat down with the chalk board and told her the story of how three consonant blends came to the WFT. The story went like this:

One day a hot air balloon appeared above Word Family Town. In the basket were two women one named TH and the other named CH. Their little son SH was with them. All the people of the town came to see as the balloon landed. TH and CH got out and introduced their son. Then they described their sounds to the townspeople.

Short, sweet and it did the trick. Nightowl drew the picture in her book. Then quickly created the stick figures TH, CH and SH. Then the play continued.

The next day I grew curious about how Nightowl was incorporating all these sounds and letters. So I said: "Nightowl did you know that the little son SH could spell every word in the Word Family Town?"

She looked unconvinced.

"Really," I continued, "He had this amazing talent. He told the people that he would demonstrate this talent. He told them that tomorrow morning he would spell all the words from the town. The problem was that he needed someone to write the words as he spelled them." (The letter folk have no arms or hands, you see.) Nightowl considered this new piece of the story and then went off to play in the town.

As luck would have it Nightowl volunteered to be a scribe for SH and the next morning we went through the process of spelling all the words. It was a very test like situation. Me calling out the words.* Nightowl listening to an imaginary SH tell the spellings. Nightowl writing them down. To my delight she spelled all the family words correctly and even figured out a few more difficult words. Success!

Since then her reading has really taken off. She's working her way through all the picture books in the house and reading some simple chapter books. She is even volunteering to read to Bearcub - which is soooo lovely.

So with this I officially ended the final block of our first grade language arts. I put the letter people away and we've taken a break for summer. Of course Nightowl is still reading for pleasure and just a few days ago she looked up from a book and asked, quite hopefully, if the Word Family Town would be in second grade as well. I think the answer to that is quite obvious.

* To facilitate the creation of our town and to come up with our spelling list I used a nifty, and very affordable book/pamphlet from Oak Meadow: The Word Family Reader. This very small book is the only Oak Meadow book that I've used in its entirety and I highly recommend it for this type of activity.

Math in May

2007-06-22T15:04:00.000-04:00

I've started putting up my May lessons. However, my attention is somewhat divided between my blog and the community blog I'm a part of: A Taste of Waldorf. So, I've posted our May math stuff there. Check it out: Math: Odd and Even Gnomes.

Little Fiddler

2007-06-19T15:02:00.000-04:00

Bearcub's finally found a way to play the violin too. Here she is tuning up for her next performance.

Time for a change

2007-06-18T21:40:00.000-04:00

Feelin whacky so I've picked a new look. I'm hoping this will help for organization as well. Hope you like!

This was fun

2007-06-17T23:19:00.000-04:00

I tried this after seeing it on Sara's blog and...ta da: I'm a daffodil!

I am a
Daffodil

What Flower
Are You?

Here's the description: You have a sunny disposition and are normally one of the first to show up for the party. You don't need too much attention from the host once you get there as you are more than capable of making yourself seen and heard.

Nice.

Ok, so I'm a daffodil, sunny and etc. etc. Only, here's my big secret - I only recently turned sunny again. In fact during the end of April and most of May I was down right cranky. That's why I haven't been posting much these days. Nor have I been on the web or reading blogs or anything. I was burned out. Fizzled. Why? The end of the school year, Chillymama quit her job, found a new job, started a new job (with three hour round trip commute - oh boy!), my relaxing hobby stopped being so relaxing, work kept me from sleeping, I am a parent, and etc. etc.

And on and on. One evening, in a rant, I found myself wondering how I got to be such a negative, pessimist. Was I always that way? So I stopped and took a good long look at my over reacting, cranky, drama queen self and decided: If nothing changes, nothing changes. Thus:

I began focusing on getting sleep - long real sleep. This means no late night computing.
I stopped working at night. I now have a helper who comes once a week, while I'm at home, to be with the kids so I can get a day for work. Miraculous.
I set an end date for our school year, June 6, and we quit completely for the summer: no "lessons," no music rehearsal, no recitals, no planning, no nothing.
I started yoga again (I used to teach...oh, so long ago.)
I let go of cooking - we still eat wholesome, it's just that now we're on the simple, warm-up plan.
I started biking and recently did a tri-athalon.
I refocused on being with my kids.
I planned a family vacation.
I started reading for pure pleasure.
I worked on being supportive to Chillymama and her career decisions, rather than harping on what should be happening.
I stopped critiquing myself for every little thing.

Guess what happened? My sunny-ness returned! Keeping the focus on me has, of course, put everything else in perspective. To put it bluntly - it's all about me. Funny, but true. Taking care of one's self is an imperative part of functioning in a healthy way. Now that my perspective is clearing (I'm really not a negative fiend by nature - whew!) life is on the upswing. As a family we've made the decision to: keep homeschooling (seemed a little touch and go there for a minute), work on our relationship with a little outside help, take more time for each other, and say "No" more often if the activity seems like it will disrupt our family life.

I've also noticed that Nightowl has learned an amazing amount this past year (yay homeschooling), that at two Bearcub is not only challenging, she's engaging and loving and cuddly and fierce, and that I create quite a bit of my own stress.

As my sunny-ness returns I'm getting refilled and finding I have a little more to give each day. We did lots during the month of May - that I'll post eventually. Bearcub had a birthday, Nightowl had a birthday, summer camp has started and things are looking up. I'm even starting to think about our next year. I might even make plans - eventually. But for now, my focus is on refilling and rebuilding my daffodilish self - and seriously, my work here is not even close to done.

Nightowl in Love

2007-05-30T22:56:00.000-04:00

Well, it's finally happened - in the most unexpected of places with the most unexpected of...um, creatures. Truth. Last Sunday Nightowl became entranced and then fell hard for the fluffy, feathered chicken.

Members from our congregation brought a small selection of animals to church last Sunday. All the kids classes got turns mixing it up with the goats, sheep, ducks, chickens etc. At the end of the service I went to pick up Nightowl from her classsroom. She wasn't there. I finally found her on the playground in a quiet space with a sweet Bantam hen nestled in her lap.

She'd been there since her class visit; she remained there throughout the coffee hour and into the beginnings of the second service. During this time her newfound chicken friend spent the entire time nuzzled in her arms sleeping, pooing (amazingly this didn't faze Nightowl at all), and finally laying an egg (this was quite amazing).

She was reluctant to part with the hen but we did finally make it home. Now we talk chickens, chickens, chickens morning till night. Nightowl wants chickens and (luckily??) our city code allows urban chicken farming - up to five hens on a city lot.

So we are now researching chickens, coops, chicks, safety, feeding, 4H and etc. Plus we've had a family talk about caring for animals and responsibility. Add this to our complete dedication in supporting our eldest - whatever direction her interests take - and you get the fact that we are considering chickens. We've decided that if Nightowl can show us that she can take some responsibility for the pets we currently have (two dogs and three cats) then maybe when she is 8 or 9 we'll consider getting a coop that will be her primary responsibility.

She's gung ho. She's taken over the cat care. She doing a daily cat box cleaning and is responsible for feeding and watering . So far she is quite cheery about it. This is good for me too as I am glad to shift that responsibility. So, we'll see if the romance lasts beyond the next few days or weeks. But for now she's pretty content with her dreams of future chickens. I keep overhearing the comments she makes to herself: "Won't it be great to have fresh eggs?" "Maybe the coop could go here." "In the winter I'll have to dig a path to the coop so that I can make sure my chickens get enough love and attention."

Ain't love grand?

The City Chicken
The Path to Freedom
Backyard Chickens
4-H USA
The Banty Chicken

Real Moms

2007-04-28T16:14:00.000-04:00

Wow. I've been tagged. And until now I had no idea that it was even possible - or what it meant. So. Here's the deal: We overworked, overloved, tired, fabulous mothers are reading the blogs of other moms. Then we tag them on our blog and create community and etc. Fun.

Ok, so here goes: I'm a stay-at-home, homeschooling, running my own business on the side mom! Ha. I have wonderful moments, the all too real mom-flab, sleepless nights and cozy mornings. It's a good thing.

I tag the following mom's: Schooling from the Heart, Amy's Mama Journal at BlogSchmog, Big Mama, and Wife Mom Maniac.

Lasagna Again

2007-04-28T15:26:00.000-04:00

Springtime now. Time for planting. True to the promise our layered lasagna garden has evolved into rich, black earth teaming with worms and other assorted creepy crawlers. The hay and mulch layers work wonders at retaining moisture.

This week we began planting with a few perennials - black-eyed susans, peonies, crazy daisies, coneflowers, and coreopsis. We are mostly interested in seeds and will begin planting those in May - once all fear of frost is gone.

Regarding our tree nursery - sadly we had no success. The seeds in cups did not work for us. But we are undaunted and will continue with other planting experiments.

The new craft

2007-04-26T14:48:00.000-04:00

This Christmas Nightowl received a wooden-peg loom from Santa. On Tuesday she asked for a new craft; out came the loom.

Day one. Beginning the pouch-purse project.

Day three. It's been hard to put this project down. The work is frequently punctuated by comments of "Isn't it fun to watch me do this!"

Reading is also covered here as Nightowl is working on deciphering the directions. Lots of new vocab such as weft and warp.

Word-Family Town

2007-04-20T15:18:00.000-04:00

Ok. We completely borrowed this idea from Sara over at Schooling From the Heart. The idea of creating a Word-Family Town to facilitate reading and spelling was just too delicious. It's been really great. Nightowl loves it so much that my two week project spiraled into four. I did not take into account Nightowl's capacity for detail - my mistake. So here it is.

It all started with a story and a house. The story of the "AD" house and all the consonant friends who come to visit. Nightowl made the house and I started making the friends. From there it blossomed.

Future plans include: directions through the town, a town-wide spelling bee, and a visit from the "Article Gang" (a, an, the...).

The only subject

2007-04-18T14:59:00.000-04:00

It seems, despite our Waldorf blocks and unschooling meandering, that our one, main, true subject is music. We spend inordinate amounts of time on music. It permeates everything. Everyday Nightowl plays her two instruments: violin and piano. Her "pencil and paper work" often relates to music theory - intervals, note reading, music writing. She also makes up songs, sings, and dances.

We use tunes to remember math and use note values for simple addition and subtraction problems. We sing songs to remember reading skills and create simple words out of various notes. We play music games such as music note go-fish.

Music also helps her to forge relationships with other kids in group class and gives her a taste of the traditional classroom dynamic. But most of all she plays. And plays. And plays. She is now playing occasionally with with an accompanist. For this task we've asked for help from our lovely friend Bob, who is a wonderful piano player, loves the children, and loves to perform. Aside from a sweet little duet, this relationship has many other wonderful benefits - friendship, family-fun (our kids play with his kids etc. etc.) and the kudos of other great adults in our girl's life.

Here they are in their first recital. Awesome.

Flat Nightowl Returns

2007-04-15T15:11:00.000-04:00

For geography we've jumped on-board the Flat Stanely train. Flat Stanley is a children's book about Stanley, a little boy made flat when a bulletin board falls on him. Other than being flat he is fine. As a flat person Stanley finds it is easy to travel via mail; he gets mailed on a vacation to California.

We liked the book and the idea. So Nightowl created a flat version of herself and we shipped Flat Nightowl off to Hawaii to visit her Aunty Kathy and Aunty Jane. She recently returned with souveniers, stories and pictures. The real, non-flat Nightowl is keeping a book of her travels as well as fun facts about the places visited.

At the moment, Flat Natalia is touring the Big Apple with our friends Margaret and Aliza. We've been studying up on NYC in preparation for her return as well as making travel plans for the future.

Photos top to bottom:
#1 Boogie boarding at Hapuna Beach
#2 Touring the volcanoes with Aunty Jane
#3 A narrow escape from the mighty Marlin
#4 Visiting the Orchid Market

Little Fairy Girl

2007-03-30T23:15:00.000-04:00

Logic

2007-03-29T23:19:00.000-04:00

During a recent trip to a neighboring town's childrens' museum Nightowl discovered a large scale chess set. That morning's chess massacre piqued her interest and we're now playing a at home. To help with the logic I've also introduced her to kid's sudoku. I found a nifty little website (Free Kid Sudoku Puzzles) with 4x4 sudoku that helps kids get a hang of the logic. We're doing a bit every day. Pretty cool.

Book Learning

2007-03-28T22:45:00.000-04:00

We spent the end of February/beginning of March pursuing Natural Science. Among other things we: visited Nightowl's tree, collected and sorted seeds, started a tree seedling nursery, began a log of said nursery, and created a rotting log terrarium. Mild March days have drawn us out of doors and kept us there.

After four weeks of this (along with our other various activities such as music, reading, painting, cooking, learning to ride the two-wheeler and etc.) Nightowl came up to me and said, in all seriousness:

Mommy, we've been forgetting to do school. We haven't done school in weeks and weeks!
Incredulous I replied: We've been doing school - all this natural science plus our other activities - this is school.
It is?
Yes.
Silence.

Interestingly Nightowl has not considered most of our daily work to be school - school being the sit at a desk and raise your hand to speak type of thing she hears of from friends and reads about in books. The only work we do that she acquaints with school is when we sit down with paper and crayons/pencils and write words or work problems.

This whole notion made her a bit uncomfortable so we spent a couple of days book learning - I gave her materials and she designed, wrote, and illustrated a new Nightowl original book. Then we worked to plan out the flowers and herbs for our lasagna garden: we made lists and sketches for planting. All this writing and flipping of pages felt more schooly to her but I can tell that she's thinking things over.

For instance she now asks randomly during painting or the creation of our letter-family town or cooking or song writing: "So this is school?" When I reply: "Yes, honey it is." She chuckles and nods her head and says: "This is school."

1 - Planting, 2 - Seed cups, 3 - The found nest

Back to Nature

2007-02-25T17:08:00.000-05:00

We've moved on, put the math books away - although the Gnomes still grace our shelves and our abacus still rattles daily - and have gone back to nature. Or, rather, Natural Science. It's our second natural science block and we're revisiting our old friend Grandforest Tree.

I think we'll spend two weeks here. Nightowl really enjoyed reviewing her work from our Fall Natural Science block (it's wonderful stuff). Now we're doing a few winter/early spring Natural science projects. The plan is to do an even larger SPRING natural science block in April. We've revisited her tree friend, read several stories about the forrest in Winter, gone on a nature walk, and have created a rotting log terrarium. We're also collecting tree seeds and next week we will plant them in small cups. Hopefully, we'll have a good start that we can transfer to our Lasagne Garden this spring. So far Nightowl has collected: apple seeds, buckeyes, acorns, and evergreen seeds (we removed these by warming up the pinecones).

However, our favorite project thus far has been tapping trees and collecting sap for maple syrup. We have a group that meets every other week. And last Thursday we went out to the woods, tapped trees, collected sap and learned how to make maple syrup. It was way cool. Sure we've all read about tapping trees and we all love syrup but these kids actually got to do it. Very nice. We ended our afternoon with a pancake and maple syrup lunch and long romp in the woody outdoors.

Now, we're feeling quite inspired and are planning, this, week to tap the maple tree in our front yard. Turns out there an entire culture of "in-town tree-tappers." All the gear and instruction kits are available at our local hardware store - who knew! We're not sure if we'll actually get any sap or any syrup, but then that's not really the point here is it? Updates on this later. In the meantime here's some images of our sappy adventure. Sweet!

Drilling the hole.

Choosing the tap. Tasting the sap.

Preparing the collection jug.

Boiling the sap.

Last Week

2007-02-20T23:43:00.000-05:00

In a nutshell: Big Midwestern snowstorm. Our little enclave received: ICE (lots of it). Chillymamma was off from work for a couple of days. Our power was out for only about 8 hours (we we're luckier than many of our friends ). So we snuggled together and made the most of it:

Cookies!

Valentines!

Wednesday Watercolors

2007-02-07T23:32:00.000-05:00

Nightowl has been watercolor painting every Wednesday since early September. We are using the wet-on-wet technique advocated by Waldorfers everywhere. This technique requires that a heavy weight of water color paper be submerged in water until nearly saturated. The artist then uses diluted watercolors to create art.

It's a tricky business this wet-on-wet painting. It's difficult to paint outlines - the concrete stuff of Nightowl's imagination. The painter needs to connect with the technique, working with the flow of the color from the brush. It requires patience, an open mind and a willingness to be flexible.

Truth be told - our painting hasn't gone so well. I had no idea (until recently) how to mix the colors. Some of our paintings were vibrant but most were washed out and barely visible when dry. Very frustrating. Nightowl was discouraged and I was sick of the whole business.

However, thanks to our recent workshop with Barbara Dewey and a cool "how to mix paint post" from Fairie School we are finally on our way.

I use several printed resources for painting but my favorite by far is How to Do Wet-on-wet Watercolor Painting and Teach It to Children by Rauld Russell. Unlike most other sources Russell recommends using 8 colors: Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Vermilion, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Lake, and Purple Lake. This is quite different from the usual three color recommendation but as we're colorful folk - we like it!

Although we had progressed to using more than one of the washed out colors we've opted to start over with single, better mixed colors. Nighowl is really taking to painting again. She's more relaxed and open to the process and pleased with her results.

We did cobalt with Barbara (See the above photo. Nightowls' painting is second to the bottom on the right).

We have done some work with Purple Lake.

Purple Mountains - by Nightowl and Aleisha

And today we tried Prussian Blue - Nightowl's favorite by far.

Ocean and Sky - by Nightowl

When we started painting I created a little story to go with the painting. We dropped as the painting became so unsatifying. We might go back to eventually though. It goes something like this:

At the beginning of time there was a beautiful Goddess. She sat on carved wooden thrown. At her side sat her companion the Imp - a prankster and joker.

One day she explained colors to the Imp. Red is a gift from the Red Fish of the Red Sea. One day the Red Fish gave me a shining red scale. From this comes red. Blue is a gift from the Blue Bird of the Blue Sky. One day the Blue Bird gave me a blue feather. From this comes Blue. Yellow is a gift from the Mainden who works in the Golden Field. One day she gave me the petal from a rare Daffodil. From this comes yellow. The Goddess carved a paint brush handle from the Tall Tree's limbs. The King Boar gave her a gift of bristles from his chin to make the brush. She gave the brush and the colors to the Imp: use them wisely and carefully, she told him. Take care to keep your colors clean and pure, your brush clean and soft.

One day the Goddess was creating the sky and the sun. She created a blue sky with a yelllow sun. Then she created a yellow sky with a blue sun. She thought about which combination she liked the best. All this painting made her very tired so she lay down to rest. Her companion, the Imp, smiled and laughed. He took his paint brush and mixed the sun and sky creating deep green. When the Goddess awoke she was startled but not angry. The Imp was quite pleased with trick.

Craft Log #2

2007-02-07T22:52:00.000-05:00

We've been crafting away during the past few months; it feels like time to take stock of what's been completed by Nightowl thus far:

Completion of the fuzzy warm scarf and the fuzzy warm doll-scarf with fringe.

Festive door wreath. Nightowl collected these pine twigs during one of our walks. She wove it into a wreath and decorated it for the holidays. It still hangs on our door.

The puppets (A Prince of a Tale...)

Rosetta! (Back to school...)

A Grumpy Day

2007-02-06T21:48:00.000-05:00

That's what it's been. Due to anxiety in other areas of my life I'm not sleeping so I'm exhausted and nervous. Nightowl, having been cooped up in-doors due to cold weather is fidgety and whiney. Bearcub is....well, she's nearly two, enough said.

This morning my kids kept poking me:

"Mommy, get up we want breakfast!" - Nightowl
"Eggs!" - Bearcub
"Mrrumph" - Me, pulling the pillow over my head.

Ok, I got up. We did our thing but overall it was a kinda grumpy, blah day. This morning Nightowl announced "Mommy, I need time to play today." She disappeared into her room aka the land of dolls and make believe. Bearcub would not allow herself to be dressed and spent much of the morning in a diaper, one snowboot (the right) and a frilly headband, all the while demanding:

"Mama! Coat! Cold!"
"How about clothing?" I'd suggest picking up the outfit for the 15-millionth time.
"Noooooo!"

And then she ran screaming the other way. Our house has a circular floor pattern so giving chase has all the makings of a cartoon adventure.

Eventually we pulled it together (sort of). Nightowl descended to help make the bread, play the violin, read some books, and do science experiments at the kitchen work table.

"What happens if I mix cornstarch, water AND potato starch...ooooh!"

Bearcub did eventually dress, this of course was only after she had removed her diaper and dumped it's contents which....well, let's just say it was pretty disgusting.

At the end of the day we headed outside for some snow play and driveway shoveling. In some ways, an hour outside cured everything. As we headed in for dinner ("Not leftovers again!" - Nightowl) we discussed the prospect of snow ice cream for dessert. This sweetness was wonderful and cheered us all. Of course, Bearcub did have quite a fit when, while trying to help make the ice-cream, she grabbed the bowl, dumped it's contents and was immediately removed from the area. But what can I say? She's nearly two. Heaven help us all.

Snow Ice Cream Variation #1
1 egg beaten
1 tbs vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups whole milk
Mix all ingredients, add clean snow, serve.

Snow Ice Cream Variation #2
2 cups full fat coconut milk
1 tbs vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
Mix all ingredients, add clean snow, serve.

All's Fair....

2007-02-06T13:50:00.000-05:00

I completely forgot to post about our recent science fair - oops! Our local homeschool cooperative runs three learning fairs every year: biography, science, and international. Participation is optional, non-competitive and open to all ages.

Nightowl particpated in last year's science fair by creating a poster of the solar system. She was game this year as well. The topic she chose: shells. She had found a large cache of shells in a basket in our garage. She's been examining them for the past few months and was eager to share them with others.

In preparation we talked about what a science fair is, what she'd like to learn about the shells and what she'd like to present. Then we were off to the library for books, and the craft store for a display board.

We looked at the shell books together - but apart from that this was her thing. She decided she wanted to know:

1. What lives in a shell?
2. What color are shells?
3. What are shells called?

She discovered answers to these questions in our reading time together and created a display - on her own. I was called in to help with spelling but other than that I was hands off (the observer is never an easy role for me so I learned a little lesson too). As you can see she pulled it off and even felt comfortable taking questions from the audience:

Now she is excited about the International Fair. She's already selected her topic: The Philippines. She's into cooking right now so for her project she will be learning to make three different, traditional Filippino dishes. I suspect that I'll be called in to help decipher the recipes and handle the heat source. Sounds good.

At the End of the Day

2007-02-04T22:30:00.000-05:00

Tuesdays are becoming bake and cook days. Stay at home, do the schooling, bake the bread and some other culinary delight requested by Nightowl.

Last Tuesday we began before breakfast - starting the bread sponge, putting the stock on for chicken soup. It was about fifteen degrees outside but we spent the day cozy and warm working in the kitchen. Nightowl helped to measure, stir, pick out ingredients. She is becoming very good at kneading and she's learning to handle a small knife for cutting. She always gets a small piece of dough to make her own creation as well. On this day she made a small cinnamon swirl loaf to share with Bearcub. In between the kneading, rising and adding soup ingredients we went about our business of lessons and learning. Even the Bearcub was remarkably unfussy.

By dinner time the kitchen was clean, the bread was was warm from the oven, the soup simmering and ready to be served. Chillymama came home. We had a lovely meal and discussed our enjoyable, busy day.

Chillymama opted to take care of the dinner clean up. As it was my night to work I went to my office to pack up my computer and files, getting ready to head out of the house. Then I heard the cry of "Oh no!"

Oh yes......

In our relaxed evening enjoyment we'd forgotten our beagle's odd and unnatural ability to leap from the floor to the counter-top. When I arrived downstairs I found Sunny, our 12-year-old hound, enjoying the last of the newly baked loaves.

Nightowl cried a little for the lost bread and I confess it made me very angry - all that work! But, after a few days I still had the great memory of our busy, cozy day. And as I remembered his swollen bread belly I kind of had to laugh. It's a good reminder that at the end of the day there is usually much to be greatful for - even if the dog does demolish the fruits of your labor.

Math, baby!

2007-02-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

During the last couple of weeks we've been working on math: number sequence, the four processes (+,_, *, /), patterns, quality of numbers. Nightowl is really liking this subject. She asks for math every day. We are having a lot of fun with it. I'm trying to organize some dramatic math play with friends - hopefully this will evolve.

I have Nightowl here with me and I've asked her to share some of her thoughts about what we're doing these days.

Ok. I'll type whatever you want to say about what we've been doing lately.
We do Gnomes. Math Gnomes. How about you type their names?

You tell me their names and I'll type them.
Divide. Minus. Plus. Times.

What do they do?
They collect jewels.

Really? Where?
In the cave.

Why do they do that?
For the kind, kind, kind king who gives them nice homes.

So what do you do with these Gnomes?
They go on different math adventures. Like they help the squirrels find out how many nuts they have. Plus gives the squirrels more nuts if they need more. Minus takes away the nuts. And Times tells them how many times times makes...I guess. That one is tricky.

Hmm...what about Divide?
Divide divides nuts for the squirrels to share.

How do you have these adventures?
Sometimes we pretend to be the Gnomes. Sometimes you use a number grid. And you put down the numbers of all the steps they had to take. Like when they visited the Elf Queen. The squirrels in her kingdom needed help with their nuts. She asked the King if any of his gnomes knew how to count. He said yes. He said to his four Gnomes, when I saw this letter I thought of you, my funny little gnomes. So the Gnomes went to the Queen of the Elves. She said that the squirrles needed help because they have a lot of nuts and don't know how many they need.

What do you mean about the hundred steps?
The Gnomes asked the king how to get the Elf Queen. The King said that they needed to go 100 steps in any direction and once they went 100 steps the directions to the Elf Queen would magically appear in their hands. So the Gnomes went 100 steps.

Did you help?
Yes. I put down the numbers so that they would know how many steps they had gone.

Was it hard?
A little bit hard. It took me at least two days to get all 100 numbers.

So what do you do once the Gnomes are with the squirrels?
We pretend to be the Gnomes and the Squirrels. We help them figure out their nuts - they have a lot of nuts.

Which one are you?
I was all the Gnomes. Mommy was the Squirrles. Now I'm getting tired of talking.

Ok. Do you want to say anything else?
We made clay gnomes. That was fun. I made Divide and Plus. Mommy made Times and Minus.

Awesome. Anything else?
That's all I can think of. That's all for now.

Family Arts Weekend

2007-01-23T23:32:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday Nightowl and I headed out on a mother-daughter adventure. We had signed up for the Family Arts Weekend at Taproot Farm in rural Ohio. We learned of this event via the Barbara Dewey newsletter (Waldorf Without Walls).

We started our trip with a side visit to our wonderful friends in Columbus. Nightowl got to play with her same age pal, Francie, and I got a late, late, late night chat with kindred spirit Nikki. We took the girls to see a production of the musical Annie and spent the rest of our time chilling and visiting and recollecting how much we all adore one another. It was a true love fest.

We arrived at Taproot Farm on Friday evening, unpacked our bags in the farmhouse (we got to stay in the Cinderella Room) and headed off to meet the six other families and play theater games. Over the next 24-plus hours we created original characters, built relationships between said characters, came up with a plot, created costumes, and staged a play. During our "free" time we learned how to wet-on-wet paint, make origami, participated in KP duty and creating communal meals, played theater games and sat around chatting and enjoying each others' company.

It was an amazing experience. Aside from what we created (which was pretty cool) the organic nature of the event is what I found most inspiring. All participants from aged 4 to much older, were able to be involved in all activites. The kids, and the adults, were included in the creation of their characters, which led to the creation of relationships, which led to the creation of the story, which led to the creation of the play. It was empowering. Everyone felt heard, and everyone seemed invested in the story.

Nightowl had a great time. In our final play her character was Carlos, the flying fairy. Working communally was very, very good for her. My character was Ref, the bashful newt. Working communally was very, very good for me.

I also came away with lots of wonderful new ideas for incorporating more dramatics into our everyday lessons - drama queens rule! I even learned to do wet-on-wet painting - a true miracle. Overall: a wonderful time had by all. (I've lots of photos from the weekend and plan to publish them somehow, sometime - when it's not nearly midnight.)

Flush right photos:
1 - View of the pond at Taproot Farm.
2 - Barbara demonstrates wet-on-wet painting
3 - My miracle painting.

The Alien Under the Bed

2007-01-17T00:34:00.000-05:00

The alien that lives under my bed can change shape.
Today he is an Eyeball.
And he is giving a talk about eyeballs and eyeball stuff.

- Nightowl, age 6

Making Granola

2007-01-17T00:32:00.000-05:00

Back to School

2007-01-13T19:29:00.000-05:00

It's been busy, this first week "back to school, back to violin, back to piano." Hmmm....let's see:

This was the first week of our Math Block. We did a lot of singing number patterns, rhythm games for number patterns, working on odd and even, counting by 2s, 3s, etc. We've been playing number games: mancala, dominoes and geometric games: tangrams, blockus. One afternoon Nightowl spied Barbara Dewey's Math for Waldorf Homeschoolers book. She was delighted by the illustration of gnomes on the cover and begged to begin learning about the gnomes. Thus we have entered the world of Math Gnomes. We're at the beginning but she is delighted with the tale of the four gnomes: Plus, Minus, Times and Divide and their adventures in the jewel mine digging up treasures. She requests more of this activity faster than I can provide it. I suspect that during the next few weeks we'll be doing even more. I'd better get ready.

One morning Nightowl and Bearcub got busy with measuring tapes. I looked up from my morning tea and noticed that they were both very intently measuring all the furniture in the living room. Ta da: impromptu math lesson. Nightowl measured many pieces of furniture then noted the measurements on paper. She next cut out each item and arranged them in order from smallest to largest. She had some confusion regarding the order of the higher numbers so we got out the Unix Cubes. These little cubes attach in columns and can be used for a variety of things. Nightowl used them to figure out the numerical order of the items she'd measured. As this progressed she figured out that it was much easier to count using columns of ten. This prompted a little lesson on counting by 10s to 100.

Nightowl was also busy building this week. She asked that I include the following images of her dollhouse world - a city of rainbow buildings and multi-cultural communal living. The entire world is presided over by two Grandmas and their children. The Grandmas have been together for many, many years and have many, many children and grandchildren.

After math, our next big project has been getting ready for the homeschool science fair. This year Nightowl has selected Shells as her topic. We discussed her project, came up with several questions that she'd like to find answers for and took a trip to the library for research materials. Nightowl has been diligently sorting through the family shell collection in search of beauties to display for her project.

Finally, our biggest project was working on Rosetta. For Christmas, Nightowl received a doll making kit and this week we began the task of creating the doll. I purchased the kit on-line from Joy's Waldorf Dolls and, as it was our first doll, I took the easier route of getting several pieces created for us (the head, the wig). Our task was to take the head and attach the skin, create the nose, stuff the hands, feet, arms, legs and body; sew it all together; embroider the face and attach the hair. This was a really fun project. Nightowl helped as much as she could. She sewed the nose, did the stuffing, attached the head covering, and placed the eyes, mouth and hair.

After our first day working on the doll Nightowl had named her Rosetta. This inspired us to work even hard to get her finished - we just couldn't leave Rosetta in pieces! It was a really magical experience. Nightowl was so excited watching the creation of this doll. When we weren't working on her she would randomly pick up the pieces and hug them. I'd hear her whispering to Rosetta, telling her what her life would be like. She prepared her other dolls for an introduction to their new sister. And then she announced that, unlike her other dolls who sleep in doll beds, Rosetta would be sleeping with her. "She's not hard like my other dolls," Nightowl explained. "So she'll be more comfortable sleeping with me." Wow. Normally Nightowl doesn't sleep with dolls or stuffed animals. While she has quite a routine for putting her various doll and animal family to bed none of them get the invitation into the big bed. An interesting development.

By the end of the week Rosetta was finished!

And, true to her word, Nightowl has slept curled up with her every night since.

Rhythm...Again

2007-01-07T21:23:00.000-05:00

Back when we started this little homeschooling adventure I posted a couple of times about schedules and rhythm. The months have passed and oh, how much I have learned.

I now know that:
1. Rhythm has little, if anything, to do with schedules.
2. Schedules, like all rules, are made to be broken.

So, on we go. We are completing the same activities - sort of - only now they happen a bit more naturally; more in rhythm and not so forced. It's good. A trifle frightening for a control freak like me...but I'm getting used to it. Sort of.

All About Bearcub

2007-01-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

The youngest member of our little homeschool is rarely mentioned. However, her presence at home and in our lives demands that her exploits and activities get a little screen time too.

At 20-months, Bearcub can no-longer be considered the baby (though that's what we still call her). She is busy from the moment she wakes. In temperament she is easy going, good natured and friendly. She is strong willed, tenacious and stubborn. The decibles of her joy are matched only by the decibles of her tantrums. In the mornings she is the first to open her eyes and then wakes me with kisses. All friends receive hugs, strangers loud shouts of hello.

Whereas Nightowl's mantra might be "I think." the Bearcub's is surely: "I do." My little one is a master of dexterity, manipulation and physical activity. Few locks, doors, or latches confound her for long. If someone in the family is busy at a task or activity, then surely she should be able to as well - preferrably loudly and with gusto. Initially content to ride along in the wake of our activities, the Bearcub has emerged as a force to be reckonned with.

Case in point: the piano. Whereas Nightowl never noticed the piano until age five, Bearcub has been aching for a chance since she could crawl. She can now successfully open the instrument, select a music book, climb onto the bench, place her music, turn on the metronome, sit down and belt out a tune. No matter that she cannot read music, she turns the pages every few minutes just the same. And she plays, plays, plays as long as she can. The longing I see in her eyes now is for the violins - kept high out of reach. She hums along to every song that Nightowl and I play. Indeed, Bearcub knows the entire rep.

Similarly, Bearcub uses her own chalkboard for writing and drawing and her own materials for painting. Her exploits into the fiber arts are confounding explosions of knots and piles. Her love of books and being read to matches that of the rest of us. She loves puzzles and pieces and biking and swinging. She launches herself into every activity, shows little hesitancy in exploring new places and situations and displays a shocking lack of caution in most areas. If she falls or is somehow thwarted? No problem, she's up and mastering the feat - beit scaling the bookshelves, pushing the tire swing, or puzzling apart the newest toddler lock.

Aside from these many activities, what Bearcub likes most is to help. She enjoys helping to fold the laundry, empty the dishwasher, feed the cats, set the table and pick up the toys. Either from example or intrinsic nature, Bearcub is turning out to be pretty tidy. She sings the "toys away" song with joy.

Her newest and most favorite helping activity is vaccuming. Previously, Bearcub has eyed the vaccum with trepidation and fear: It's loud, it's clunky, it's takes Mom's focus. But over the past few months she's been taking cautious steps: a willingness to be in the same room with the ghastly thing, tip-toeing past it, sneaking over to push the power button. And then today, the unthinkable: a request to do it herself. So, I lowered the handle and passed it over. Oh joy! Oh rapture! Forty minutes later she was still involved: Vaccum. Turn off the power. Turn on the power. Vaccum. Turn off the power....

When lunch was on the table I had to step in and bring the activity to an end. "No, Mama," she cried. "More vaccum!" she signed. But I insisted. Oh, the wailing that ensued - complete with a full body drop to the floor, and the beating of fists and feet. Call CPS because I won't let the child vaccum any longer - it's time for lunch and a nap.

True to her nature the hysterics passed quickly. Now it's lunch time. Time to scale the chair, wash the hands, insist on an open cup. Time to eat heartily and messily and after, exhausted from the effort, enter sleep quickly and deeply and then wake, refreshed, for more.

A Prince of a Tale and Then Some

2007-01-04T13:14:00.000-05:00

It might seem like with travel, work and holidays that "school" has gone by the wayside. Actually, we have been working on the more traditional stuff too - well traditional for us.

Our most recently completed "school" block was language arts. I had originally planned four weeks for a Waldorf type block but we got so involved and took so many exits into the land of unschooling that four weeks morphed into ten.

What have we done? In nutshell: We completed the first two language arts blocks as presented in the Christopherus Grade One Curriculum - with a little tweaking of our own in some places. These two blocks consist of creating a pictoral letter alphabet based on a continuing story infused with Grimm's Fairy Tales (re: a big story with little ones nestled inside). Our story went something like this:

There was Kind King and a Quiet Queen. They were parents to a Proud Prince. Because he was so proud he was not ready to lead the Kingdom. So, their cousin, the Wise Woman, took him on a journey. During this journey he learned many things and returned home much wiser and ready to lead the Kingdom.

Every week I told Nightowl a segment or two of the Prince's story - oftimes this segment included a tale from Grimm's. The story segment would emphasize a particular set of letters (ie: Proud Prince = P). She would illustrate the story segment including the actual letters within her drawings, on other days she would practice the letters she learned. By the end we have a complete alphabet and a completely illustrated tale. At the end of the tale she moved onto writing simple allitrative word phrases. We also brought this story into our craft time, creating hand puppets (pictured above) of the Prince and the Wise Woman. We have re-enacted the entire thing with said puppets.

This activity worked extremely well for Nightowl. We did a similar type of illustrated alphabet last year for Kindergarten - as per Oak Meadow instruction. It was good introduction for her but not nearly as cohesive. My decision to engage in a similar activity for First Grade came about primarily because she seemed ready for the archetypal stories in Grimm's (she loves them). I also sensed that a letter review would be well received. True on both accounts - this activity was a hit. Nearly every day she asked for a new episode of the Prince. I put pictures up on my larger chalkboard. She then copied the pictures and letters first on her own chalkboard then in her main lesson book.

Included here are a few of the drawings from the Prince's Tale that Nightowl wished to showcase on the blog.

Images: 1-Kind King, Quiet Queen, Proud Prince, Wise Woman; 2 - Lovely Lady, Holle House,;
3 - Ooohhh!; 4 - New Needle, Curled Cat;
5 - Rapunzel; 6 - Letter practice

So that was our Waldorf. Our other adventures in reading during this past ten weeks include: working through McGuffy's Eclectic Primer, Nightowl reading aloud chapters of Frog and Toad, delving into classic children's books (see our Grade One Reading List), and creating original books.

That last part is pure Nightowl. For fun during her free time, Nightowl has been book making. She has written and illustrated several small books (I am usually called upon to dictate spelling). But the main project has been the creation of her own Magic Schoolbus adventure. Entitled "The Magic Schoolbus Goes to the IU String Academy" this work has taken a life of its own.

I gave Nightowl a blank main lesson book and she started by laying out the story via pen and ink illustrations, coloring them in later with colored pencil. This is a work in progress and not yet finished (so no photos at this time), but progress is being made. She is writing many of the words herself and she knows the storyline. I suspect that I will be called in once again to dictate spelling and help her locate music and string facts - but then that's my role in this: purely support staff. This is her project, fueled by her own desire, her love of playing the violin, love of the program she is in and her love of the Magic Schoolbus books.

This type of free learning makes me giddy with delight. It's what I hoped for when we began this adventure. On many occassions the entire day has been spent at work on this project. It's incredible to watch and has proven what almost all of the homeschoolers I know have told me: Let them go and they will learn. Fabulous.

Solstice

2006-12-28T22:57:00.000-05:00

Our Solstice celebration was really fun this year. We continued our usual tradition of reading the Solstice stories from Circle Round. Then we added the new ritual of baking Sunflower Millet bread (We've added baking to our list of weekly activities. We bake now. We're bakers.)
Sunflower Millet Bread

Nightowl was very pleased by our craft for gifting: beeswax candles. She was able to make many of these for friends and family. On the 21st we had a fun time at a Solstice celebration with other homeschooling families - many treats, candles, kids and laughs.
Beeswax Candles

Finally, in culmination we woke early (for us) on the 22nd to wait for and welcome the sun. It was kind of a downer as our Indiana gray skies showed only brightening cloud cover, but we sang songs and ate our bread.
Mother Sky cradeling the newborn sun, by Nightowl

Then later, in the afternoon, when the sun finally burst through Nightowl cheered: "I knew you could do it!"
Sundancers, by Nightowl

Reading, Reading, Reading

2006-12-18T22:46:00.000-05:00

That's what we're doing these days. Just a quick update (see our Grade One Book List). We are currently into a number of books (including books about Mammoths). These days you'll find the following on Nightowl's reading table:
Mary Poppins
Don Quixote
McGuffey's Eclectic Primer
Peter Pan
Frog and Toad All Year (she's reading this aloud to me)
Fira and the Full Moon
Meet Kaya

We've recently finished The Moffat Museum and Ginger Pye, which nearly completes our foray into the works of Eleanor Estes (I think all we have left is Pinky Pye).

Nightowl also listened to the complete Addy Story Collection from American Girl on CD. This was pretty intense as Addy is the American Girl who escapes from slavery and creates a new life in the North with her parents. Thematicaly, this set of books is a bit too old for Nightowl, we happened upon it while looking for something to listen to during our Thanksgiving drive to see the relatives. The first book was so realistic and sad that we very nearly abandonded it. I'm glad Nightowl listened through to the end as doing so helped to resolve some of her worries. However, these books have inspired endless discussions of human rights issues, racism and bigotry. Big topics for my little one.

- Addy in the fields collecting worms, by Nightowl

LA Story #5: The Best Time Ever

2006-12-18T22:10:00.000-05:00

On our final evening in Los Angeles we headed to the famous La Brea Tar Pits. We waited until after naps and for a respite from the 90 degree sun(!) to head downtown.

Going late in the day was great. It was near twilight. The Page Museum was closing soon so we got in at half price. There were no crowds. We had the run of the place - great!

Nightowl describes this part of the trip as "The best thing I've ever done! The best time I've ever had!" She's been dinosaur obsessed since she was three, and a museum of ice age skeletons and facts thrilled her beyond measure.

We literally ran through the museum (the clock was ticking) which wasn't really hard because it's a very, very, very small museum. But it was thrilling. We dicovered a mammoth statue and real mammoth skeleton.

Nightowl loved the saber tooths, the wolf skulls and the timeline of ice-age man. She was really intrigued by the female skeleton that was found in the tar.

After going through the entire museum, twice, we ventured outside for a twilight stroll near the tar. Also thrilling. Seriously, Nightowl could not get enough of this. We followed the pathways imagining the mammoths, the cats, the hunters. Her excitement did not end with the end of our trip. At home we now have several books about the Great Ice Age Mammoths. Plus she's added Archeologist to her growing list of future careers: Paleontologist, Violinist, Ice Skater... Archaeologist.

LA Story #4: The Seaside

2006-12-05T01:09:00.000-05:00

Our main goal during vacation was to be out in nature - the weather was great and it was a good counter to the seemingly endless hours spent driving.

So, our next adventure took us to Santa Monica for a day at the beach and the Santa Monica pier. This was the Bearcub's first experience with an ocean. She was not daunted and ran merrily into the waves, headfirst. The water was chilly so we remained clothed, barefoot and near the edge. Quite fun and quite the challenge with the cub as she continued to head in (literally) again and again and again.

Once we were completely chilled and sandy we headed to the outdoor showers near the pier. On the way we found ourselves walking, quite unexpectedly, through a graveyard. Or rather, the image of a graveyard.

We were in the middle of Arlingon West a temporary memorial erected in the sand by the local chapter of Veterans for Peace. This graveyard gave us a chilling picture of war and it's consequences. Nightowl had some questions and we all discussed war, our nation and the world. Quite the unexpected Social Studies lesson. Despite the gravity of the memorial I was happy that Nightowl got to experience it. She has heard of the war from radio, our parental talks and from sermons at church. This particular memorial fell right in line with our pacifist, UU tendencies.

After lunch we visited Pacific Park - a small amusement park on the Santa Monica pier. It's just a few rides but enough to have a little carnival like amusement. Nightowl really enjoyed the bungee jump, entertaining us with back flips at forty feet. Wee!!

We ended our coastal adventures with a side trip to Venice Beach in search of a little yarn shop recommended by a California friend and fellow knitter. There we purchased our only bag of LA goodies: yarn and lots of it. The owner was very friendly and helped Nightowl find several types of yarn that she could use to make things for her dolls. She also got her first pair of circular needles. If you're ever in Venice check out A Mano Yarn Center - very wonderful.

LA Story #3: The Huntington Botanical Gardens

2006-12-05T00:44:00.000-05:00

Saturday in Los Angeles was cool, sunny and wonderful. We chose to spend the day at the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botantical Gardens.

For Nightowl (and the rest of us) the botanical garden was the only option. And it really was amazing. Bearcub and I spent the morning at the Garden. Then we headed back to the hotel for afternoon nap. We picked up Chillymama and Nightowl when the gardens closed. They'd spent six hours in the gardens and we're still not really ready to go.

First we explored the Children's Garden - a very hands-on, experiential type of garden with lots of topiary, water, sand and fog. The actual Fog Garden was a favorite (first photo). Every five minutes chimes would toll and clouds of fog would billow. Bearcub enjoyed the topiary animals (second photo). There were rabbits, deer, dinosaurs. We also splashed in a number of fountains, enjoyed a "plant house," the prisim rainbow bridge and a number of topiary tunnels (third photo).

After the Children's Garden we went to explore the science lab and other nature exhibits - all very hands on and exceptional. One favorite was the tropical seeds exhibit. Nightowl saw a variety of spices and learned to connect them to the actual plant (vanilla pods - vanilla plants, cocoa - cocoa plant, etc.). Nightowl spent a long time here. In the first image she's checking out the view through a bee's eye. The second is a coconut exhibit. The third is an identify the plant game:

There was still more to see: Chinese Gardnes, Desert Gardens, Wildflower Gardens, Rose Gardens, Japanese Water Gardens and on and on. We could have spent days there. Days.

LA Story #2: Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

2006-12-05T00:36:00.000-05:00

During our trip Nightowl was continually fascinated by the change in plantlife. Everything seemed to be blooming in LA and she took every opportunity to enjoy it. We spent one afternoon at a lovely park in South Pasadena. This particular park had a rose garden and Nightowl had a camera.

Sad to say that the camera she used was a disposable that we picked up during the wedding reception. The actual photos did not turn out so well. But a good time was had by all. And the observation of roses added well to our work on reverence for nature.

LA Story #1: The Incredible Glass Eating Baby

2006-12-05T00:04:00.000-05:00

During the first week of November the entire family packed up and headed to the West Coast. Our main reason for traveling was to attend the wedding of a close college friend. But, as it had been so long since we'd travelled, we extended the trip into a week long vacation in Southern California. Fun!

The first item on our itinerary was the wedding. It was a lovely evening event. We dressed up - something we never do - but of course forgot to get a photo. Their ceremony was short and sincere. My dear friend was beautiful and so happy - her husband seems so perfect for her. There was a lovely meal, a kid's room with crafts, dancing, fabulous cake, visits with old friends and lovely chocolate. All in all a good time.

One noteworthy item from the evening: During dinner I held Bearcub on my lap. I gave her a drink of water from my glass while I chatted with an old friend. Then, from across the table I hear: "Oh my god! Your baby!" I look down and Bearcub has taken a large bite out of the piece of stemwear from which she was drinking. Gads!

It was a clean break. No shards in the mouth. No cuts. Just a big bite out of the glass and a good story for the baby book. And perhaps a career in the circus sideshow for Bearcub - possibly.

Spirits and Lights

2006-12-01T02:26:00.000-05:00

Time to catch-up. I believe I left this blog right before Halloween. So....

We had a lovely Halloween.Time was spent getting ready by decorating with a number of rainbow skeletons. We also created the list of our beloved dead whom we honor during the day of the dead.

Although trick-or-treating might seem like the pinnacle of Halloween, our big event is the annual Halloween concert with the String Academy. Imagine more than a hundred young violinists aged 5-18 on stage playing together and listening to each other. Each violinist in an imaginative costume. The teachers wear costumes too. As this is an annual concert with all the students we do tend to hear a repetition of the songs every year. But it doesn't matter because each year Nightowl is at a new level, playing new songs and getting more and more confident. Plus, it's so darn cute.

Our final early-fall celebration was the lantern festival on November 11, Martinmas-- bringing light into the darkness. Nightowl made a simple folded paper lantern in her Oak Meadow class. It was decorated with cutouts and watercolor paints and contained a small candle.

That evening we all gathered for a lantern walk in the woods. There were songs and treats and a bonfire. The lantern processional always feels a little scary to me as we actually give children, little children, open flame lanterns to carry through the woods - yikes! (I keep looking around thinking: "There a lot of dry tinder on the ground..."). But I got over it as the feeling of reverence took over.

It's amazing how serious and careful the children were. And the trail of lantern lights twinkling in the woods is really beautiful. I, of course, forgot the camera but we took pictures once we returned home. Very lovely.

Rage

2006-11-28T15:14:00.000-05:00

We've been having a hard time here lately - there's been no time to post. We're still schooling and muddling through but it's been stressful and difficult. My job has kept me working long, long hours so my sleep is short - I'm quite lucky to get 3-4 hours per night. Chillymama's office gig is also extrememly demanding right now. There's lots of tension.

Our trip to LA came amidst lots of work chaos and wasnt' really very relaxing. It was fun. But it was work. Truthfully, it was a bad time for a trip. This month (and much of October) has been filled to capacity. I simply have no time for anything beyond working and doing the bare minimum to get by.

When I am exhausted beyond measure feelings turn to rage. My coping strategy is to hold it in, not let it errupt. But more than a month of repression takes it's toll. I'm edgy and often near panic. This leaks out in the household and I can feel my kids shrinking away. It's horrible. I even imagine giving up - on homeschooling, work, relationships - life. Not really an option.

I had a wonderful talk with a friend today. I called her after she sent an email asking: "Where are you? I haven't seen you since September." It was wonderful to talk to her. We discussed the stress and the rage and the joy. My spirit feels much, much lighter.

It all makes me wonder why I don't reach out or call out more often. Why hold it in? Why the need to sort it out all by myself? I'm not sure. But I'm glad for the connection I made today. It's why I'm including this in a post. I need to talk about it more.

The best part of everyday is the time I spend unschooling with my kids. But this gift has a cost. We are not wealthy. We choose to give up income and follow this path. For that reason I work in the evenings. And Chillymama remains working in a stable job with wonderful benefits for us all. Sacrifices all around - by choice.

This life we've created is not all chalk pictures and hand crafts. At times it feels effortless but at others it feels brutal and suffocating. There is a light at the end of the tunnel - at least for me. My deadlines are nearing and my 40-60 hours per week job should ease up to it's normal 10 hours by early to mid-December. Then we can find our rhythm again.

I'm looking forward to that.

What type of homeschooling do you practice?

2006-10-29T15:12:00.000-05:00

I get this quesiton a lot. Mostly in conversation with friends, relatives or others who are out there, silently reading the blog. It's good to know you're there. :-)

So, here's the answer: We do what we need to do, as it works for us. How's that for elusive?

If I have to give a more defined answer I'd say that we defy categorization. I've never been one for following rules. Although we honor the schedule, understand the need for structure, and have a few tried and true beliefs, rigidity in any form is not our way.

That said, for those who'd like to know here are three areas we fit into:

#1
Unschooling. Unschooling is a term coined by educator John Holt. He wrote many works about revamping public schools and how kids learn. Unschooling is kind of a hot topic these days. We are not radical unschoolers or parents who use the label and then ignore what happens. Rather, we try to follow our kids' lead; their natural curiosity generates their will to learn. We simply help them find the means. For more info check out this article: What is Unschooling? or The Sudbury Valley School.

#2
Waldorf Inspired. Waldorf is a method developed by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian Philosopher in the early 1900s. This method emphasized child development and art. We say Waldorf Inspired because we don't follow Waldorf exclusively. There is a lot I like about the Waldorf method, especially for the younger ages, in fact Waldorf inspired pedagogy is what we are mainly following these days (within our schedule and lesson blocks). However, some of the philosophy simply does not work for our family in this modern age. There is an intersting article entitled Oak Meadow and Waldorf that talks about this very topic. Oak Meadow is a Waldorf inspired homeschooling curriculum used by many. We use it and really like it. For more information check out this site: Waldorf Homeschoolers. Plus there are some Waldorf Resources within the links to the right.

#3 Core Knowledge. Core Knowledge Foundation is a non-profit that conducts research on curricula and developes materials. It was founded in the late 80s by Edward Hirsh and offers a variety of books on what the foundation deems: core knowledge. The Core books were created to be used by teachers in the classroom and as supplements by parents of publically schooled children. We like the series "What Your ___ Grader Needs to Know." These are pretty rigid books, but they are well written, easy to follow and provide a good map of what a child might be ready for. Lots of homeschoolers use this series as the basis of their schooling. We like them and use them mostly as reference points and to see what public schooled kids of the same age might be up to. I also get some good ideas for answering questions that Nightowl frequently poses.

So there you go, that's how we homeschool - most of the time. While we draw from these sources we don't use them exclusively and sometimes we use them not at all. Sometimes we look at work by Charlotte Mason, Suzuki, various library materials, UU materials or we draw from our own experience. We also get a lot of information and ideas from other homeschoolers. We are finding that there is no single, correct map for learning. Our kids don't fit conveniently into any mold - and we like them that way.

Making Lasagna

2006-10-24T21:11:00.000-04:00

At the end of our Natural Science block we decided to make lasagna. Actually, we've been planning this for some time but last week the weather and timing came together. Lasagna time!

In the cool autumn chill of mid-October the kids and I took ourselves out-of-doors and began work on our lasagna garden. No, not a garden where we grow the fixings for the cheesy pasta dish of the same name. In this case Lasagna refers to the layering technique for building soil.

We first heard of this method when we stopped to chat with Rhea, a lovely older woman who lives, and gardens, near one of our downtown parks. Rhea's lawn has no grass. It is completely planted with every imaginable native plant. We admired her lawn and stopped to tell her so. She recommended that we try it using the Lasagna method to kill our sod and begin planting. I did a little research and found The Lasagna Garden by Patricia Lanza.

In a nutshell: mark off a space, build layers of organic material, plant. In our case we're opting to build our garden space in the fall and then plant in the spring. But the layering is the same.

So....

First, we marked our space. Then we added the first layer: wet newspaper.

Then the second layer: peat moss. Then the third layer: straw.

Then the fourth layer: leaves.

That's all we've done for now. Our plan is to add at least 8 more layers before it snows. The entire process took a couple of hours. The most suprising thing is how much we all enjoyed the endeavor. I am not a gardner. Despite growing up and spending most of my life in a farming state I do not garden, never have. And my eldest - she hates to get dirty. This is the child who as a baby rarely needed a bib, who at three finished painting in pre-school with a completely clean smock, who at six took a bucket of soapy water and scrub brush to the new tire swing before she would use it. We're talking neat and tidy.

Once I persuaded her to wear the old sweat pants ("They are comfy," she admitted) and told her that finally I was willing to try a garden ("I've been wanting flowers for years, Mommy.") she was game. She had a great time. During our peat mossing she kicked off her shoes and rolled in the dirt shouting: "I want to stay here like a pig forever!" During the whole session she kept exclaiming about how much fun it was. She even enjoyed raking the yard (a bonus chore off the to-do list).

I enjoyed it too - the work, the outdoors seeing my two kids so happy (Bearcub drank the newspaper water, poured peat moss in her hair, rolled in the hay and threw leaves.) And I'm so glad to have given Nightowl the opportunity to get down in the muck and love it. We're already looking forward to adding more layers! And who knows, perhaps in the spring we'll have a bed ready for planting. Here's hoping.

Right on!

2006-10-21T14:24:00.000-04:00

I found this article: No Room For Site Inclusive of All, originally published in June 2005, when I was puttering around the UU Homeschoolers site today. Don't know why I didn't see it before.

Here's my favorite quote:

"With the homeschooling movement growing in popularity, experts say the philosophical mind-set is shifting to include more people who see home education as an extension of good parenting rather than an outgrowth of religious instruction."

Check it out!

Also don't miss: Unitarian Universalist Homeschoolers

Handwork/Craft Log #1

2006-10-17T20:02:00.000-04:00

Six weeks of handwork and crafts - here's what Nightowl's finished so far:

Pre-knitting: Twisty-turnies, braiding stick, finger knitting, hand knitting and beginning knitting project.

First finished knitting project: the multicolored washcloth!

Desk and chair for Elizabeth (she's practicing her reading and writing). Nightowl made this in the woodshop of our homeschooling friends Art, Gwen and Zosia. It was hand painted later by Nightowl.

Three sets of handmade knitting needles and the beginning of the second knitting project: the warm fuzzy scarf.

The scarecrow - halloween cometh! We were joined in this project by our neighborhood friend, Summer. Good times!

The Drawing Emerges

2006-10-09T14:49:00.000-04:00

Last week we were busy with the continuation of our Natural Science Block. We visited her tree, compared needles and leaves. Made a book of pressed leaves (still in the pressing process) and heard more from Grandforest. The week ended with our trip to the Orchard.

Today we spent time learning about the process of the apple tree - from seed to fruit. Again using the Grandforest Tree resource we cut apart apples to find the five pointed star - memories of the flower bunch, blossom and seed. We've done leaf rubbings. It's all been good - learning all over the place.

Today, however, I'm struck more by how Nightowl's drawing is changing. Remember how frustrated she was when asked to "draw without outlines." She was especially worked up about her first drawing of the pine.

Since then something has changed. I noticed it first when she came to me with a new drawing of her evergreen tree that she wanted to paste into her main lesson book. She did this on her own, during free time, with her own crayons. Wow! Check out the difference.

The depth in this picture compared to the first. And her resistance to letting the image emerge, without outlines, continues to dissapate.

She did these images of different types of evergreen needles without outlines but stumbled when it came to the maple leaves (these were traced).

She tried the maples on the next page and viola - more vivid.

And then today we had no plans for drawings - like to keep things from getting too static - but she insisted that she wanted to create the lesson using block crayons. And so....

Again, sort of a combination of both techniques, but it's coming along. And she's learning how to correct aspects that she doesn't like. Plus, a good depiction of the science covered today. All in all lesson well learned. Can't wait to see what happens next.

Two Violins

2006-10-09T14:30:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday last week I picked up my new violin and Nightowl and I entered the world of duet practicing. It's been about 5 years since I picked up a stringed instrument as I sold my cello when she was 13 months ("I can't imagine playing it again"). I'm a little rusty but so far so good. I ordered my violin based on reading John Holt (Learning All the Time) and his thoughts on the Suzuki method. Make no mistake the violin program Nightowl is enrolled in is wonderful - we couldn't be happier. After a year of playing she is confident and enraptured with the instrument. However the pieces have become more challenging - Minuets and the like, so a little dueting seemed like a good idea. We are playing together and she is taking the time to instruct me. "Mommy your bow is swooshing. Don't let it swoosh. Here watch me." This type of thing thrills her.

So on we go. And, confidentially, I love having a stringed instrument back in my hands.

"What I like about homeschool."

2006-10-05T16:50:00.000-04:00

Today we went on a field trip, with the LEARN co-op, to Apple Acres Apple Orchard. We visited the orchard, the apple cleaning and sorting facility and the cider house. We picked our own apples from the trees. Nightowl loved it and had a lot of fun.

Later, after quiet time, we were sitting together and enjoying a hot drink when Nightowl mentioned that one of her public school friends said: Homeschool seems like it's a lot easier than public school. Nightowl reported that her friend seemed a little sad during this talk.

I find it interesting that Nightowl discusses schooling and other such important issues with her friends (both homeschooled and public schooled). She is interested in all kinds of issues and the notion of how one is schooled is something we discuss frequently. The comment from the friend today led us to a discussion of: Is homeschooling easier than public school? Instead of recounting our conversation from memory I've got Nightowl here with me. I'll type her answers as she tells me:

Remember the conversation we had upstairs? I'll type your answers about homeschooling being easy or hard. They will show up on the blog for our friends and grandparents to read. So, what do you think about homeschool? Is it easy?
I think homeschool is very easy because I like it so much and so well. I think it's fun because I can learn whatever I want. We get to have Learning Club and we get to have fun. Everything we do is based on having fun. And we do. It's especially fun for me. I think I'll always like homeschool.

Do you want to mention anything about it being hard or easy - like what we were talking about upstairs?
Some things are hard. And some things are easy. It all depends on if I like it.

What's hard?
Form drawing was hard. But we're not doing it anymore. We will do more but that won't be for awhile. I liked form drawing but I did not like the hard ones so well. For they were hard. Really hard.

Anything else you want to say about hard and easy stuff?
I think it's fun going to the apple orchard. They tell you a lot of stuff. There is a big refrigerator room that is really chilly. It's full of boxes and boxes of apples. The not so good apples they use to make cider. I liked it because my mom let me get a carmel apple. I also get to taste the cider samples. We got to pick apples and look at all the buildings. There is a funny polishing machine. Me and my friends thought it was funny to watch them swim around in the big machine.

Anything else?
You can start whenever you want and end whenever you want. I like that we can do anything we want.

What don't you like?
I do not like...actually there is nothing I don't like.

Even when you do hard stuff?
Yes, I liked form drawing but only once in a while. I think I'm all done. Oh there is something I wanted to say: The instruments I play are piano, violin and recorder. That's all.

From the mouth of the babe.

Glasses

2006-10-05T00:16:00.000-04:00

News of the day: Nightowl will be getting glasses. I suspected she was having vision trouble a couple of weeks ago - she was unable to see the music when we were working on violin. Our trip to the eye-doc today confirmed it. She's farsighted, at least for now - there is some chance that she will outgrow it. Truthfully, I'm not holding my breath as I've been in specs since I was about 8 and her father also wears glasses. On the plus side she only needs them for detail work: reading, writing, handwork, art, music. In short for all the school type stuff we've been doing.

She picked out a snazzy pair of pinkish/purpleish metal frames with small rhinestone flowers in the corner of the eye pieces. Plus they are engraved with our phone number in case they should be lost; modern convenience.

Today she would randomly burst out with: "I don't want to wear glasses." Then there would be a long sigh and silence. At other times she seemed excited saying: "I don't want to wear them just for reading and knitting and drawing and playing music - I want to wear them all the time!"

We shall see (no pun intended) what transpires when the glasses officially arrive.

What I Know Now

2006-10-03T23:13:00.000-04:00

Monday was a sick day. Nightowl had been up breathing steam at midnight so this wasn't too surprising. What was surprising was the whole concept of "sick day." I remember as a kid that sick day meant relaxing, doing nothing, getting well while watching t.v. As a parent I recall sick days from the time when I was working or when we were doing preschool - the need to arrange childcare, the worry about what we would do ALL DAY LONG. Yikes.

The homeschool sick day is a horse of another color - largely, I suspect, because of my new attitude toward home and activities. So it was a sick day - but we're already home. Nightowl took it easy and stayed on the couch until lunch and during quiet time, after which she was feeling better. What did we do? Exactly what we always do - minus the physcial stuff. We worked on our natural science block, did some reading, some art, learned a little bit more Russian.

The school work we do is no longer "school work" it's everyday. It's what we do. For us learning is no longer a separate activity as in "Now it's time to do school." It just is. I was trying to explain this and our general way of life now to a friend whose kids go to public school. I had a hard time explaining. She laughed and called us all "a bunch-o-buddhas." Which is a good thing - I think? Words from those within the eastern religions.

Anyway, this is now the way and it seems to be working. Today was our second (sorta) sick day - although Nightowl was much better and even went to soccer practice this evening. We spent our craft time working on pop-up faces - a cool little craft that came to us from Wonder Homeschool. Neat!

Science (and other subjects)

2006-10-01T23:51:00.000-04:00

Our first week of Natural Science was pretty successful. We did not do all of the activities I had planned. We did some and made up others. Exploring the Forest with Grandforest Tree is the main resource we're using for this block. I knew I liked this book when I first laid eyes on it (Thanks Andrea!). I started loving it when I read through it. Now, working the lessons with Nightowl I have to say that I really love it.

We started our week with a tale about how forests began. The story sets a very meditative mood. I had her lie down and look up at the branches of our silver maple. Nightowl was completely inspired when hearing about the rocks then the lichen then the moss then the ferns then the soil then the trees. She had some specific science questions about lichen etc. which we were able to find answers to from resources we had around the house. Then we went searching for lichen and moss and ferns. We found quite a bit - it's very humid and wet here. Next she wanted to draw the story into her main lesson book. Note that there are no trees in this picture just rain, rocks, lichen and moss.

The next day, on our morning walk I noticed that she was much more observant of the trees in our neighborhood. By the time we had reached home she had collected a variety of leaves. She wanted to do leaf prints - not on our schedule but ok. So we broke out the tempra paints, set up the easel for Bearcub and got to work using a selection of fall colors.

It was Bearcub's first attempt at painting and in about 3 minutes she painted herself, the paper on the easel, the cement, and me. In short she made a huge mess and had a great time. I was lucky to get the photo - the camera got painted too.

Leaf printing is tricky business and Nightowl found it frustrating as the leaves did not come out exactly as she wished. Her first inclination was to give up and start over. But, as she was putting the prints into her main lesson book there was no turning back. I think it was a good exercise for her. She worked for a long time and was, in the end, satisfied with the final result:

This picture inspired a nifty little math discussion about pattern and sequence which then led into leaf forms and form drawing - didn't see that coming.

On day three, during our walk, we searched for a tree that Nightowl could adopt and watch during the school year. She is most interested in pines so we stopped to examine most of the pines in the neighborhood. During this walk she discovered that:

Different pine trees have different length needles
Longer needles tend to be softer.
Shorter needles tend to be sharper.

In the end she selected a medium sized tree located one street over from ours. It's a fat, full tree, 35 steps around, with medium needles that are "kinda pokey." She also figured out the street name from the street sign - reading in action!

On returning home we started our main lesson (hadn't it already started??) - a guided meditation with Grandforest Tree. Nightowl stood quietly next to our silver maple and tried to imagine her own roots and branches. From this exercise she got a pretty good idea of how trees get nutrients from the soil and how leaves take in moisture. She then happily dubbed our silver maple as our very own Grandforest Tree and gave it a big hug (I've created a tree hugger!).

When this was finished she still wasn't done. Now she wanted to write a story about her adopted tree.

So in we went. Opened the main lesson book and....well, I didn't actually mean to begin story writing until our next lesson block on language arts but...here we go. I showed her how to set up the pages with golden lines and how to separate her words using golden stars (ala Donna Simmons) and she was off.

I tried to entice her with simple sentences and was successful with the first. But for the second she would not settle for: "It has pinecones." So we headed into the realm of the creating sentences with more than one multisyllabic word.

She ended her story with a picture of her pine. During last spring and summer we practiced drawing without outlines - the Waldorf way. This method is advocated for a variety of reasons (more than I will recount here). Nightowl hates it. She loves to draw - her way. She spends hours and hours and hours drawing her way. Drawing is her way of calming down, relaxing and soothing her soul. To be given directions in drawing is an insult deeply felt. So, we talk about it and she tries.

She was quite frustrated with her drawing of the pine. She kept defaulting to outlines and then getting angry. But she stuck with it and, in the end, made her picture into something she could live with. We'll continue with this type of drawing because it really taps into her focus, creativity, perfectionism and patience.

During the weekend we've visited her tree every day. She's quite insistent upon it. Plus she's learning to read all the street signs in our neighborhood - so she can find her tree. And she's been collecting things - for her main lesson book - from her tree.

So, we started out with the intent to explore science and ended up covering science, math, art, form drawing, language arts and a little bit of neighborhood geography what with the sign reading. The week ended with an episode our homeschool coop: The Learning Club, various music lessons and three soccer events. Whew. No wonder I felt so exhausted. No wonder Nightowl was so jazzed.

Wonder what next week will bring?

In Memorium

2006-09-26T21:59:00.000-04:00

I learned today that we've lost a really amazing man: Michael Vincent Verbowsky. Michael was a friend of ours from many years ago. He was a talented artist and the creator of our commitment rings - among other wonderful works. His death was sudden, shocking and surprising - no prior illness, just a sudden heart attack. He was so young (45) and it feels like such a deprivation. Tonight we will light a candle and sing a song for Michael, and for his life partner Michael Wallace. Our hearts go out to them both.

The Most Important Things

2006-09-26T21:44:00.000-04:00

There are three things that, I've discovered, are absolutely integral to our daily success. They are:
1 - The daily walk.
2 - Quiet time.
3 - Free time.

#1 - We try to always take our daily walk first thing right after breakfast. I load up the dogs, the Bearcub and Nightowl and we're off. At this point we can make it nearly a mile (Nightowl's legs get tired) at a slow pace. This walk really soothes our souls, wakes us up (we're not morning folks) and provides a good transition for our morning lesson. On a couple of occasions we've had to skip our walk - we could tell. Our moods were funny, our legs ached, and we felt itchy. We need it everyday.

#2 - I initiated quiet time after another homeschool mom noted that her kids were early readers because "I make them have an hour of quiet reading everyday." Interesting. I'm all for reading. I like quiet time. Viola! We take ours daily from 1:30-2:30 (give or take 30 minutes). Bearcub goes down for a nap. Nightowl gathers books, puzzles, and drawing supplies and heads for the bean bag in the playroom. She props up a pillow and grabs a blanket if it's chilly. During this time she gets a special quiet time drink - lemonade, hot tea, banana smoothy. I must make myself sit - no telephone, no email - and read or knit or nap. One whole hour. It rocks.

#3 - Despite the schedule I'm not a stickler and freetime is a most wonderful homeschooly thing. It's exactly that - we all do what we need to do. Play (Nightowl), throw and dump (Bearcub) or assorted chores (Me). Fabulous.

I'm finding that the kids really need these anchor points - even during weekends or holidays. These three things ground us and make our learning work. The ability to provide daily selfcare feels like a gift that I'm giving myself and my kids.

Form Drawing Block 1

2006-09-24T00:26:00.000-04:00

On Friday we finished our first main lesson block: Form Drawing. For the past three weeks Nightowl and I worked on a number of linear forms for the beginner.

Initially, the notion of Form Drawing felt completely baffeling. I read many, many sources but couldn't get a plan to gel and aside from a notion of which forms to start with I had nothing: no creative story incorporating forms, no real order, no idea how to really begin. Ultimately, I just decided to jump in.

At the end of the three weeks I have to say it went pretty well. We covered ten forms beginning with the single, vertical line. I didn't have a story to use so I made it up as we went along. It was a simple tale - tale is a generous definition, more like a few defining sentences. It went as follows:

1 - Danny, a young boy who lives in a little house with...
2 - His grandmother, a wise old woman who walks with a cane...
3 - And his three sisters: Isabel, Mary, and Louise.
4 - Their home is in a large meadow of flowers.
5 - Sometimes Danny would walk out and stand in the meadow.
6 - Sometimes he would stretch his arms.
7 - Sometimes he would look up to the sky.

8 and 9 - One day while Danny was standing in the meadow he noticed two horses with riders approaching his house. One rider was carrying many gold baubles. The other was dressed entirely in red.
10 - As the riders continued toward the house they eventually passed Danny. As they did each gave him a gift. The first rider gave him a gold bauble. The second rider gave him a bottle of vivid red perfume....

The story ends on a cliff-hanger, of sorts, to be continued during our next form block. I have no idea what is going to happen but I imagine it will evolve.

Nightowl enjoyed drawing the forms. We started by drawing them in the air with our hands, drawing them with our feet, using sidewalk chalk, walking the forms, creating them with sticks, buckeyes, strings. She then tried them on the chalk board, the transfered them to paper.

Imediately after form number two (the old grandmother) I realized that Nightowl was not ready for curves, so we spent our weeks on linear forms. She was most challenged by form number four (the meadow - horizontal line) - it brought her to tears of frustration.

In my reading I've learned that form drawing is the precursor to geometery and handwriting. But it is so much more. Nightowl really enjoyed the activitiy, despite the difficulties. Our daily hours of form drawing initiated a depth of concentration and a desire work slowly and simply. It also gave her a new way of seeing - the form within the image. We find our forms all over the city. It was also amazing to see how she needed to sit with, or sleep with certain forms before she could translate them to paper.

I'm really looking forward to our next form block when we will begin exploring curves. We won't abandon form drawing completely until then. During the next few months I'll be asking Nightowl to put final versions of her forms in a main lesson book. I'm hoping that this will keep them alive and vibrant.

And what about the Bearcub? She enjoyed the form drawing as well - scribbling along and erasing on her own little chalk board. This block was a great introduction to both first grade and homeschooling. Based on this I feel completely happy and grateful that we are homeschooling.

Autumnal Equinox

2006-09-23T23:40:00.000-04:00

Tonight we had our family equinox celebration. The girls and I have been preparing for this all week. Along with our other daily activities we've been reading stories from Grandforest Tree and Circle Round, collecting fall things (leaves etc.), observing the change of seasons.

It all culminated this evening. Nightowl was busy all afternoon preparing for our celebration. To begin she created her first wool felt board:

She really loved manipulating the wool and had a lot of fun with the medium. For those who can't interpret the wool this picture shows: a changing tree, a pile of leaves and a rake, a lonely hawk, chilly autumn sun and rain clouds, and a little girl who's found the last violet of summer.

Then she disappeared downstairs to prepare for our party. It was a very secret operation and we adults were not allowed into the playroom. Our only hint of her activities was the come to the party sign, Chillymama helped with the printing:

She finished up right before dinner - our seasonal repast of baked pumkin and potatoes topped off with pomegranate fruit. After dinner we took an evening walk and looked for the autumn changes. Once we returned home the party began. Nightowl had set up a family game night complete with her newly created Equinox Matching Game:

We played this and other games and were invited to snacks and hugs. The evening ended with the spectacular lighting of the Autum Equinox Lantern. Nightowl and I finished the lantern Friday afternoon and we were so excited to see it at night. Upon lighting it for the first time she exclaimed: I had no idea it would be so beautiful.

I couldn't agree more.

Grade One Book List

2006-09-19T22:09:00.000-04:00

For our records here is a list of the books we've finished during our grade one year. I'll be adding to this throughout the year but will not create a new post each time. For now this list only includes books we've read together. This will probably change as Nightowl's literacy increases.

Ramona and Her Father - Cleary
Little House in the Big Woods - Wilder
Mr. Popper's Penguins - Atwater
Miss Hickory - Bailey
The Moffats - Estes
Fillipino Children's Favorite Stories - Various
The Middle Moffat - Estes
Rufus M. - Estes
Ginger Pye - Estes
The Moffat Museum - Estes
American Girl: The Addy Story Collection
Mary Poppins - Travers and Shepard
Don Quixote (Children's Abridged Version)- de Cervantes
Peter Pan - Barrie
Frog and Toad All Year - Lobel
Kaya: An American Girl
Old Mother West Wind - Burgess
The Adventures of Blacky the Crow - Burgess
The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat - Burgess
Catwings - LeGuin
Catwings Return - LeGuin
Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings - LeGuin
Jane on Her Own - LeGuin
The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver - Burgess
Unc' Billy Possum - Burgess
Peter Pan in Scarlet - McCaughrean and Fischer
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Carroll
Old Granny Fox - Burgess
The Little House in the Fairy Wood - Cook
Grimms Fairy Tales - Pantheon Edition

Buckeyes

2006-09-19T14:25:00.000-04:00

Today it wasn't raining but last night's deluge had helped our buckeye drop the last of it's seeds. So, after our morning walk we just couldn't head into the house or to the back patio area where we usually do our outdoor lessons - this was too good to pass up.

Nightowl grabbed a collecting basket and we engaged in our yearly ritual of collecting buckeyes. They are fun to gather, find, peel and collect. We discussed why some appear to be rotting (Were they sitting in a puddle?), we noted that the shiniest come right from the seed pod. We did our favorite magic trick: Watch closely! I'm going to hold an entire tree in my hand...Ta Da - I'm holding a buckeye (from which the tree comes..).

From this we morphed into our form drawing lesson using, you guessed it, buckeyes! An engaging task because the buckeyes roll. During this first block we've been working on linear forms (horizontal, vertical, three lines of decending length, etc. etc. etc.). We've named our main line Danny so we created Danny and his various positions with buckeyes, then sticks, then added sidewalk chalk for color and variance.

This morphed into color blending and color combinations which we've been working on during our watercolor painting sessions. Nightowl was completely absorbed in making color swatches of chalk, layering and then blending with her hands for effect and new colors. Her final product was not as bright as she wanted so we considered our options then began blending to make it brighter - quite the task.

During all our exploits Bearcub was busy in the yard hauling mulch (kinda), collecting buckeyes, rolling in chalk dust, and getting into puddles. Her favorite game was dump-the-basket-of-buckeyes-over-her-head-feeling-them-conk-and-then watching-them-roll-away. Hilarious. Then Nightowl and I would patiently gather them back up.

It was so beautiful and golden sunny and just so Equinoxey and Fallish that I dashed inside for the camera - only to find it missing. Turns out Chillymama has it with her in Boston - she's away on a work trip - so I've no images to share.

We ended our work with a long ride on the tire swing for Nightowl, some heart-rate-raising pushing for me, and some running in circles for Bearcub. The buckeyes are now waiting, in their basket, on the patio. We'll keep using them for forms and math and projects as long as they are not rotting. Who knows we may, eventually, have pictures to share.

Rhythm

2006-09-19T00:03:00.000-04:00

When I began thinking about homeschooling the number one question I asked everyone was: What does your day look like? What do you do? I had a strange visions of neat little rows of desks in my living room mixed up with relaxed scenes of sleeping in late and following our dreams.

Now that we're officially homeschooling - parents know, friends know, you could say we're quite out about it - I've been considering this question a lot. For the record our days and weeks look something like this:

Breakfast
Walk
Main Lesson
Playtime
Music
Lunch
Naptime for the Bearcub, Quiet reading time for Nightowl, feet up for me.
Snacks
Crafts - or - Foreign Language - or - Watercolor Painting - or - Seasonal Festivities

Everyother Thursday we attend a two-hour session of "The Learning Club" through our local homeschool cooperative. On Fridays Nightowl joins a group for a three-hour-Waldorf-inspired class on World Folktales, while the Bearcub and I have a mom and baby music class followed by some good one-on-one time.

We usually begin this routine about 9 and end around 3:30. We spend as much of our time as possible outdoors. Within all that is time for household chores - laundry, the making of dinner, etc. etc. - wild out door play, and baby dance party. After dinner we have the extra-curricular activities: soccer and violin.

Our Main Lessons are grouped into three or four week blocks - where we work within one subject intensively. At the end of the block we switch. Our block schedule for this fall is as follows:
Form Drawing
Natural Science
Language Arts
Mathmatics

But that's only 12-16 weeks? Ah, we have also scheduled our week long autumn vacation and several weeks to prepare for holidays/festivals (Equinox, Samhain/Day of the Dead, Thanksgiving, Solstice) not to mention the occassional day off.

I did not create this schedule - it evolved. Waldorf and Waldorf inspired pedagogy suggest following natural rhythms. Lesson blocks follow the rhythm of the seasons, daily schedules follow the natural in-flow and out-flow of energy, similar to breathing. Now, I cannot speak or teach Waldorf philosophy (you'll have to google to find those answers) but I did quite a bit of study and finally got quiet and the schedule evolved. Our days follow a basic Waldorf pattern of top-to-bottom noted as Head (Main Lesson), Heart (Music or Art), Hands (Craft). Of course we deviate somewhat and sometimes skip everthing entirely - that's the beauty of the homeschool. We can also sleep in when we need to....which happens...alot.

It's still evolving - just last night Nightowl and I discussed playing violin together in the evenings instead of during the day. Bearcub is usually in bed, it's twilight, and the music is lovely. It could work. Or not. We'll just keep with the flow and bend with the rhythm.

A rose by any other name.....

2006-09-18T23:47:00.000-04:00

It's been driving me kinda nutty. The names. I absolutely hate typing "my six-year-old" or "my 16-month-old" within each post. It's impersonal. It's empty. It's long and tedious to type. So, I've been trying to come up with code names for my kids. In the tradition of friend Sara (see Schooling from the Heart under Inspirations) I want clever, descriptive names that seem to fit. We know her kids and husband and, believe me, her code names work.

But I couldn't seem to find anything that I really like. Everything sounded so contrived. After dismissing all of my own ideas I went straight to the source. Here are the suggestions from my six-year-old regarding herself: Princess Unicorn, SunFairy, Beautiful-Dancing-Child, Nightowl.

Here are the suggestions from my six-year-old regarding her baby sister: Destructo Baby, Butterbean, Butterbutt, Cutie-Pie, Bearcub.

Hmmmm....let's just say that I find these less than inspiring. However, as I've got nothing better, I hearby christen my eldest as Nightowl - it does fit, she's focused, strong, powerful, and usually up all night with an inclination to sleep during the day. Excellent.

And for the little-un: Bearcub. Her personality is still forming and this is my home nickname for her with her ambling, waddling walk and tendency to climb on unstable things. Excellent.

Henceforth, these two children shall be noted within posts as Nightowl and Bearcub.

Excellent.

What We're Studying This Year

2006-09-12T21:47:00.000-04:00

In attempt to outline a path for our first year I find myself drawing from many, many sources. Most are Waldorf, some are Waldorf inspired, some are completely different. They all have little gems and pieces that I'm finding useful. Plus I continue to add more resources - it can seem a bit overwhelming. But it is all coming together.

This year we are attempting the following subjects:
Form Drawing
Natural Science
Language Arts
Math
Watercolor Painting
Drawing/Illustration
Music - violin, piano, voice and song
Foreign Language - Chinese, Korean, Russian
Handwork/Crafts
World Culture
Phys Ed - We practice the bike without training wheels everyday!
Plus a variety of other subjects as we become interested in them - and they do come up!

Miss Hickory

2006-09-12T00:03:00.000-04:00

I've spent some time looking for appropriate books to read together with my oldest daughter, age 6. That's why I was so delighted to find "Miss Hickory" on the award winners shelf at our local library. This simple chapter book is a Newberry Award winner (always a good bet), tells a story based on nature and the natural world and the magic of said world, and is full of amazing original lithographs. Success! Waldorf-ish, beautiful, award winning, chapters! Excellent choice.

Move forward one week. We've finished the book. My daughter is delighted, retelling the story at every opportunity, creating her own illustrations, flipping through the pages again and again. Me and my partner - we're a little stunned, because to be truthfull, this is one bizzaro book. Don't get me wrong, I liked it and would recommend it. But sweet? Sort of. Bizarre - absolutely.

Short synopsis: Miss Hickory is a small doll created by a little girl. Her body is a twig. Her head is a hickory nut. The story begins with the little girl and family leaving for the winter, thus leavning Miss Hickory to fend for her self with the help of forest and farm friends. Adventures in the woods abound. Beautiful.

Enter Squirrel.

In a nutshell (ha, ha) Squirrel stalks Miss Hickory through the entire book and get's his revenge (See Squirrel Takes Revenge, Chapter 14) by finally eating her head. Oh my. This doesn't kill Miss Hickory. She's alive just headless. So she just sticks her head, oops, I mean neck, into a cut in a tree and becomes grafted thus giving the tree her gift of life. Ultimately, she helps to provide apples (via her new tree self) to the little girl who made her. Full circle. Bizarre.

I truly thought my daughter would find this terrifying. But no. She finds it hilarious and dead serious. Perhaps I'm too adult and jaded. Or maybe I'm just too cynical or not Waldorfy enough. Whatever. I find this book completely silly and strange. However, we do not mock Miss Hickory, her quirkish ways or her headless predicament. She's become a sort of hero in our home..although, I must confess, we adults giggle about her late at night.

Day One

2006-09-06T23:16:00.000-04:00

Last spring we dabbled with homeschooling and came to the decision that this was for us. But how to proceed???

Over the summer we took a break. My children played, swam and had delicious summer fun. I played, swam and had the delicious summer-fun task of reading every homeschooling item I could get my hands on. I grilled the homeschoolers I knew. Borrowed texts. Read blogs. Surfed the web. And then, I shopped. I bought supplies and books and art materials and other stuff I just knew we needed.

As the boxes rolled in my 6-year-old eyed them eagerly asking: "When do we start!" Right after labor day I told her, repeatedly.

I made schedules: daily schedules, monthly schedules, year-long curriculum schedules - drafts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... As I posted these in our homeschool area my 6-year-old eyed them eagerly asking: "When do we start!" Right after labor day I told her.

Finally, I felt ready. We could begin. But it wasn't yet after labor day. And then, my first "ah-ha!" moment: We had started long ago. As the supplies had rolled in and the schedules developed and the books were read - we had already started. The rhythm of our day unfolled long before I put a schedule down on paper. The supplies have been opened and examined long before our start date. We're making felt dolls, knitting, getting into our daily rhythm of head, hearts, hands. It's all been happening.

Thus the first lesson is mine - we really are learning all the time.

BTW we did start our first subject block today: Form Drawing. It went swimmingly.